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Build the future of consumer robotics in your living room

Casper is a complete robot kit that is conversational, expressive, hackable, and unlike anything else you can buy

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Sign up for early access and a $50 VIP discount at launch

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Movement, expression, recognition, and memory bring Casper to life

Casper ships with everything you need to have a working, conversational robot that you can customize on day one.

Features

What sets Casper apart

Works out of the box

No fighting with the serial bus, no Linux rabbit holes, no ground noise that ruins transcription. Start with a robot that works so you can learn how the pieces fit together and customize from there.

Works out of the box

No fighting with the serial bus, no Linux rabbit holes, no ground noise that ruins transcription. Start with a robot that works so you can learn how the pieces fit together and customize from there.

Works out of the box

No fighting with the serial bus, no Linux rabbit holes, no ground noise that ruins transcription. Start with a robot that works so you can learn how the pieces fit together and customize from there.

Packed with possibility

Casper knows who you are by the sound of your voice and remembers your conversations with AI / ML. It can move and express itself with servos, an OLED screen and voices All out of the box.

Packed with possibility

Casper knows who you are by the sound of your voice and remembers your conversations with AI / ML. It can move and express itself with servos, an OLED screen and voices All out of the box.

Packed with possibility

Casper knows who you are by the sound of your voice and remembers your conversations with AI / ML. It can move and express itself with servos, an OLED screen and voices All out of the box.

Hackable

Don't like how it moves? Change it. Think you can make cuter faces? Go for it. Want Casper to be a little sassier or to speak with an Australian accent? You have access to the hardware and software to build on.

Hackable

Don't like how it moves? Change it. Think you can make cuter faces? Go for it. Want Casper to be a little sassier or to speak with an Australian accent? You have access to the hardware and software to build on.

Hackable

Don't like how it moves? Change it. Think you can make cuter faces? Go for it. Want Casper to be a little sassier or to speak with an Australian accent? You have access to the hardware and software to build on.

Delightful and useful

We've been given a false choice for years: boring pucks that set timers, or cute toys that can't answer a question. Access to the internet makes Casper smart and useful. Social awareness means it stays quiet when it not in the conversation.

Delightful and useful

We've been given a false choice for years: boring pucks that set timers, or cute toys that can't answer a question. Access to the internet makes Casper smart and useful. Social awareness means it stays quiet when it not in the conversation.

Delightful and useful

We've been given a false choice for years: boring pucks that set timers, or cute toys that can't answer a question. Access to the internet makes Casper smart and useful. Social awareness means it stays quiet when it not in the conversation.

Bill of Materials

What’s in the Kit

The kit is designed for people that like to build and tinker and doesn't require any soldering or special equipment. Just some screwdrivers and a computer for initial setup.

In the box

Everything you need to put together an AI powered robot comes in the kit along with build instructions and software tools to get setup.

Raspberry Pi

ESP32

OLED Screen

Pan / Tilt Servos (360* / 180*)

Microphone and Speaker

Power supply

Enclosure for electronics

0

Years in development

1k+

Lines of code tying the kit together

1k

Pretty color pixels to play with

5

Ways to customize your robot

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

If you don't find the answer to your question below - please contact me

What am I able to customize?
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Robot movement (by changing ESP32 code that controls servos), facial expressions (by adjusting ESP32 code that controls the OLED screen), speech-to-text model (by changing the speech-to-text model), voice (by changing text-to-speech model), and personality (by adjusting the LLM prompt and LLM model).

When does it ship?
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We're targeting a Kickstarter in roughly 2 months. The core technical risks are already behind us: we have a working prototype with full orchestration running on a Raspberry Pi. The remaining gate before we launch the Kickstarter is a successful FCC pre-compliance test of an Engineering Validation Test (EVT) version.

What does the VIP discount give me ?
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The VIP discount gives you a $50 discount on the Kickstarter giving you the guaranteed lowest price we will sell the kit for.

Does the kit support on-device models?
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Yes - the orchestration supports local models for speech-to-text, large language models, and text-to-speech. But - It’s a Raspberry Pi, not a NVIDIA Jetson so while you can experiment you may see performance and latency differences vs. cloud services.

Do I need to know how to code?
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No. The kit will ship with all the components, software, and configuration that is needed to get it working out of the box. If you want to make changes, it will help if you know Python (for orchestration, memory, speaker recognition) or C (facial expression or movement). Even if you don’t know how to code, the code will come with a markdown file that will provide context to your AI assisted coding tool of choice (e.g. Claude Code, Google Antigravity, OpenAI Codex).

Can I use my own API keys ?
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Yes. You will be able to load your API keys for services that you select.

What if I don't know what API keys are?
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We're actively working on a managed option so you can get Casper running without touching a single API key. Sign up and let us know that's important to you which helps us prioritize what to build.

Do I need to be able to solder?
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Nope! All connector boards and cables come with the kit.

What am I able to customize?
icon

Robot movement (by changing ESP32 code that controls servos), facial expressions (by adjusting ESP32 code that controls the OLED screen), speech-to-text model (by changing the speech-to-text model), voice (by changing text-to-speech model), and personality (by adjusting the LLM prompt and LLM model).

When does it ship?
icon

We're targeting a Kickstarter in roughly 2 months. The core technical risks are already behind us: we have a working prototype with full orchestration running on a Raspberry Pi. The remaining gate before we launch the Kickstarter is a successful FCC pre-compliance test of an Engineering Validation Test (EVT) version.

What does the VIP discount give me?
icon

The VIP discount gives you a $50 discount on the Kickstarter giving you the guaranteed lowest price we will sell the kit for.

Does the kit support on-device models?
icon

Yes - the orchestration supports local models for speech-to-text, large language models, and text-to-speech. But - It’s a Raspberry Pi, not a NVIDIA Jetson so white you can experiment you may see performance and latency differences vs. cloud services.

Do I need to know how to code?
icon

No. The kit will ship with all the components, software, and configuration that is needed to get it working out of the box. If you want to make changes, it will help if you know Python (for orchestration, memory, speaker recognition) or C (facial expression or movement). Even if you don’t know how to code, the code will come with a markdown file that will provide context to your AI assisted coding tool of choice (e.g. Claude Code, Google Antigravity, OpenAI Codex).

Can I use my own API keys ?
icon

Yes. You will be able to load your API keys for services that you select.

What if I don't know what API keys are?
icon

We're actively working on a managed option so you can get Casper running without touching a single API key. Sign up and let us know that's important to you which helps us prioritize what to build.

Do I need to be able to solder?
icon

Nope! All connector boards and cables come with the kit.

About

About Casper and me

Hi, I'm Carter. I've been building and taking things apart since I was a kid. Nerd camp in middle school, robotics team in high school. My wife still jokes that the reason I joined the team was so I could build myself a robot friend. Yeah, who doesn’t want a robot friend?

This project started 5 years ago because I thought we deserved a better experience than what we were getting from "smart speakers" which hasn't changed much since then: command and response, no emotion, no memory.

2021

The idea

Tried to build something more compelling than Google Home and Alexa. NLP was too brittle, chatbot builders required enormous if-then-else trees just to fake a conversation. I knew what I wanted to build but the tech wasn’t ready.

2021

The idea

Tried to build something more compelling than Google Home and Alexa. NLP was too brittle, chatbot builders required enormous if-then-else trees just to fake a conversation. I knew what I wanted to build but the tech wasn’t ready.

2022

Large Language Models

Started playing with Large Language models on Hugging Face. Clearly more natural and better than anything that could be done with NLP and chatbots. While at Amazon, I tried to convince an Alexa VP to surface LLM driven experiences. Joined a startup building AI agents for health systems and got too busy.

2022

Large Language Models

Started playing with Large Language models on Hugging Face. Clearly more natural and better than anything that could be done with NLP and chatbots. While at Amazon, I tried to convince an Alexa VP to surface LLM driven experiences. Joined a startup building AI agents for health systems and got too busy.

2023

Hardware

Bought the first set of components to start building: an Arduino, OLED screen, pan and tilt servo kit, and a Raspberry Pi. Setup a basic loop from the computer to the Arduino to make different faces and move.

2023

Hardware

Bought the first set of components to start building: an Arduino, OLED screen, pan and tilt servo kit, and a Raspberry Pi. Setup a basic loop from the computer to the Arduino to make different faces and move.

2024

Memory, Facial Expressions, Personality

First complete version with memory, facial expressions, and real LLM driven conversation. Latency was terrible, all the audio I/O was being done on my computer but the core of it was there and my kids loved it.

2024

Memory, Facial Expressions, Personality

First complete version with memory, facial expressions, and real LLM driven conversation. Latency was terrible, all the audio I/O was being done on my computer but the core of it was there and my kids loved it.

2025

Wakeword and speaker recognition

Got wakeword detection and voice recognition working. This helped reduce speech-to-text costs and let it know who it was talking to.

2025

Wakeword and speaker recognition

Got wakeword detection and voice recognition working. This helped reduce speech-to-text costs and let it know who it was talking to.

2026

Finally!

Rebuilt orchestration to get rid of latency. Moved all orchestration and audio I/O to Raspberry Pi. Five years and it's finally ready to share!

2026

Finally!

Rebuilt orchestration to get rid of latency. Moved all orchestration and audio I/O to Raspberry Pi. Five years and it's finally ready to share!

Contact

Get in touch

If you think Casper would be a great addition to your classroom or club, you have an idea on how to partner, or robot kits just fire you up, I'd love to hear from you.