Einstein smart speaker · 2019

A smart speaker with a personality.

We built a smart speaker shaped like Salesforce's Einstein. His hair lights up in any color, an LED display on his sweater shows his voice while he talks, and a phone remote runs the whole show, from across the table or across a venue.

The Einstein smart speaker on a table: a figure with glowing pink hair, a white mustache, and a navy sweater with a lit-up voice waveform across the chest
Pink hair, voice on the sweater.
01The character

His hair is the light show.

A speaker on a table is easy to ignore. A character isn't. Einstein's hair glows and shifts through any color the remote picks, so a room can see him react before he says a word.

2019Cycling colors on the bench.
02The remote

A remote that doesn't trust the venue Wi-Fi.

The phone talks Bluetooth to a small LoRa radio board. That board reaches a second one sitting next to Einstein, up to 2 km away, and the second board talks to the speaker over Wi-Fi. Listening, speaking, colors for each cloud, and the mic are each one tap.

Diagram: an iPhone remote connects by Bluetooth to LoRa32 board A, which links up to 2 km to LoRa32 board B, which connects by Wi-Fi to the Einstein smart speaker
Phone to radio, radio to radio, radio to Einstein.
The iPhone remote app: Off, E-Listen, E-Speak, A-Listen, and A-Speak buttons, six round colored buttons with icons, and Crazy, Mic On, and Mic Off buttons
The remote, built for a thumb in the dark.
03Still running

He's still on the bench, and still talking.

Einstein never went in a box. The current version takes its commands from a phone over Wi-Fi: speak, pick a color, mic on, mic off. The hair lights up and the waveform scrolls across his sweater when he answers.

TodayDriving Einstein from a phone.
What it proved

Give the AI a body and people lean in.

The same voice from a laptop speaker gets a polite nod. Coming from a character on the table, with his hair lighting up as he listens, it gets a crowd. The radio link meant it worked anywhere we set it down.

Next project · (phando) Blades

Five spinning blades, one hologram.