$250black in stock at anki.bot; open-box $190–230; the $99/yr subscription is unnecessary with wire-pod

AvailablePython from a laptopReal Python SDKSelf-dockingNo cloud neededOne room

Possibly ≤ 1 weekShipping: About 1 week claimed. anki.bot says in-stock items ship within one business day and black is in stock, but DDL has a documented history of late orders; pay by card. anki.bot ↗

Remote control: Run wire-pod on a laptop as the robot's local server (a macOS build exists and runs fine on Apple Silicon), pip install wirepod_vector_sdk, then with anki_vector.Robot() as r: to drive and pull camera frames.

anki.bot ↗wire-pod ↗Python SDK ↗

Overview

The only consumer companion here with a real SDK: motors, camera, face detection, speech and the display, all from Python on a laptop and fully local once wire-pod is set up. The catch is scale, since it's a desk robot whose cliff sensors stop it at rug edges and thresholds. Fun for prototyping personality and voice, not for a whole house. DDL has a history of shipping problems, so pay by card.

Specifications

Category	Companion robots · Small companion robots
Released	2020
Availability	Available
Programmability	Community / unofficial SDK
Best for	Ages 8+ (maker rating)
Vision sensors	Camera
Actuators	DC / gear motors
Audio	Speaker, Microphone
Compute type	Qualcomm
Remote control	Python from a laptop
Size	~10×6×7 cm, ~160 g
Drive	Tank treads + lift arm + tilting head
Compute	Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core (on-board face/person detection)
Vision	2 MP wide-angle camera (120° field of view on the original), streamed to the host computer over Wi-Fi
Lidar	None (single-point ToF)
Sensors	ToF, 4 cliff sensors, touch, 4-mic array, IMU, color face display
Runtime	About 25 min when active before it returns to its charger (longer when calm); the 2.0 battery is rated up to 30% longer than the original and is user-replaceable
Speed	Not published; desk-scale (the official SDK examples drive at 50–100 mm/s)
SDK	wirepod-vector-sdk (Python, Anki SDK fork, last release 2024) + wire-pod server (active 2026). 2.0 units need "ep" firmware flashed first