Can a 6-Year-Old Talk & Play with a Robot Dog?

Would you hand your kid an LLM robot instead of an iPad? I did.
In this video, my child puts our dog-style interactive robot (ESP-Hi) through real, unscripted play.

Why this matters:
I think giving children this—rather than an iPad or a mobile phone—can satisfy their intellectual curiosity in a better way. It invites conversation, problem-solving, and real-world play instead of endless scrolling.

What you’ll notice:
Natural, kid-led dialogue (no scripted prompts)
Quick turn-taking and playful feedback
Encouraging tone that keeps kids trying again
Parent-guided, privacy-aware approach

About the build (ESP-Hi)
ESP-Hi is a ultra-low-cost conversational robot dog built on the ESP32-C3. Paired with a large language model (e.g., Xiaozhi AI), it supports natural, real-time dialogue. A mercury switch handles vibration wake-up and motion cues, while a 0.96-inch color display shows expressions. The robot performs 12+ actions. By leaning on the ESP32-C3’s built-in peripherals, it achieves audio capture and speech output with minimal extra hardware. Firmware-level optimizations reduce RAM/Flash usage so wake-word detection and multiple peripheral drivers run reliably in a tight resource budget.

[ESP-Hi: An ultra-low-cost AI conversational robot dog powered by ESP32-C3]
https://oshwhub.com/esp-college/esp-hi
(Currently, there is only a Chinese version.)

#ESP32 #LLM #Robotdog #ESPHi