Custom Firmware for the StackChan ESP32 Robot
A StackChan ESP32 toy robot whose Chinese cloud I swapped for my own local AI pipeline on the Mac Studio.
About the project
I bought a StackChan, a cute ESP32 toy robot, except it talked to a Chinese cloud.
I didn't like that, so I swapped it for my own local pipeline on the Mac Studio: transcription via whisper.cpp, answers from OpenAI, voice via ElevenLabs.
I wrote my own ESP-IDF firmware for it so the robot talks to my server.
I'm still in the bring-up phase and just playing around. Hardware plus vibe coding is new ground for me.
Why I built it
- I wanted to take the Chinese cloud away from the toy.
- To try hardware and local AI together.
- My own ESP32 firmware from scratch.
How it works (under the hood)
- ESP32-S3 with my own ESP-IDF firmware.
- A local pipeline: whisper.cpp + OpenAI + ElevenLabs.
- The robot talks to my server, not the cloud.
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