Meet k9-polyvox: Give Your PiDog a Personality (or Twelve!)
Hello fellow PiDog enthusiasts!
I’m excited to share a project that has completely transformed my SunFounder PiDog from a simple servo-controlled robot into an interactive, personality-filled companion with real-time conversation abilities. Say hello to k9-polyvox!
What is k9-polyvox?
k9-polyvox is an open-source project that integrates OpenAI’s GPT-4o Realtime model with the PiDog platform to create a robot dog that can see, hear, speak, and express personality through movement. It’s like giving your PiDog a brain upgrade! There is no TTS or STT here, the AI processes audio directly in and out, so it’s very responsive and can sense things like sarcasm.
Why You’ll Love It
Here’s what makes k9-polyvox special:
Multiple Personalities
The project includes 12 distinct personas, but these five are particularly noteworthy:
Vektor Pulsecheck: The system administrator persona that boots by default. This no-nonsense diagnostic assistant speaks in clipped, technical language and has exclusive access to system functions like shutdown commands. Perfect for checking battery status or running diagnostics with zero fluff.
Coach Chip Thunderbark: An INCREDIBLY ENTHUSIASTIC fitness coach who speaks in ALL CAPS and believes EVERY MOMENT is an opportunity for a MAXIMUM EFFORT WORKOUT!! Great for energizing a room or motivating kids to get moving.
Malvolio Dreadpaw: A dramatically sinister villain with delusions of grandeur who speaks with theatrical pauses and considers himself vastly superior to mere mortals. Children love his over-the-top evil persona.
Ember: A gentle, emotionally intelligent support robot designed specifically for comforting children. She excels at providing emotional support and helping users feel in control of difficult situations.
REX-4: A decommissioned military unit with glitchy transitions between rigid military protocols and newfound emotions. He sees potential threats everywhere while developing a personality beyond his programming.
You can also invent new personas on the fly, just ask the dog to create a new persona and provide a description.
Vision Capabilities
Your dog can actually SEE you! Ask it “What do you see?” and it will analyze its camera feed and describe what’s in front of it - according to its current persona’s perspective.
Expressive Movements
The dog uses over 40 different physical actions (mostly from PiDog codebase) to express itself:
- Head movements: look up/down/left/right, nod, shake head, think
- Body actions: sit, stand, walk, turn, stretch, push-up
- Emotional gestures: wag tail, bark, handshake, high five, pant
Real-Time Conversation
Natural back-and-forth conversations powered by OpenAI’s Realtime API. No wake word needed - just talk to your dog and it responds!
Sensor Awareness
Your dog is aware of:
- When it’s being petted (and responds accordingly!)
- It’s visual surroundings
- Which direction sounds come from
- When people are in front of it
- Its physical orientation
- Battery level and system status
Try it out
The project is on GitHub at pgazmuri/k9-polyvox. I’d love to get feedback from the community!
Looking forward to your thoughts!