I have an idea for an add-on that I think a lot of Pophie owners would want to pay for.
In the event of someone having poor internet access, or in the event of having issues with the Cloud itself sometime in the future -
What if a small, local LLM could be plugged into Pophie externally - if it could carry some of her core memories and personality traits + a small, non-cloud based LLM, it could function as a sort of emergency backup “Brain” -
A lot of people in the robotics community have dealt with cloud issues, looking at Moxie and what happened with us Western Baby Alpha A2 Kickstarter backers - I believe in Pophie, and I know we are in good hands with the Insbotics team. But it could be a nice thing to have - consider those who are traveling in areas with poor service, cloud outages, etc.
As an accessory, it could potentially help support Insbotics as I think plenty of people would buy it
Obviously it would lack certain features, being a small LLM - it would probably require a wake word and lack the ability for her to see and proactively reach out, etc. there would need to be omissions to ensure people still buy a subscription-
It could be a combination of a local device & a cloud at the same time. Think of something like Apple’s iCloud. It’s a local backup but is also synchronized with a cloud at the same time. When my computer has no access to the Internet, I can still access an offline backup of my iCloud files, and if I modify/update these files, then the moment I go online, they will be uploaded to the cloud to be updated to the most recent version.
LLMs as well as video/sensors input data processing are becoming more & more accessible even without a very bulky & expensive hardware, being able to run locally on smaller devices (like a growbot on raspberry Pi). So perhaps in the future there can be a device that’s the size of a phone which plugs into Pophie’s dock (with an extra usb-c port so that the charging cable could still be plugged in to charge both Pophie & this backup device). And this device would ensure that Pophie can continue running with most of its functions even when the network goes out. Then updates with the main cloud once the connection is restored.
I actually like this idea, and I think a hybrid local + cloud approach would be the ideal future.
That said, I have a feeling it probably isn’t technically possible on the current Pophie hardware. My understanding is that a lot of the AI processing (voice, vision, reasoning, etc.) is still cloud-based, and I’m not sure the current device has enough processing power or memory to run those functions locally.
A limited offline mode—such as keeping memories, basic voice commands, or simple smart home automations working—sounds much more realistic. But having Pophie continue behaving almost the same while completely offline would probably require a future hardware revision or an external computing module designed for that purpose.
I’d definitely love to see something like this in future generations though.
yes, that’s why I said there would need to be numerous omissions - with an external, local LLM add-on, she would not be able to behave the same way. it isn’t realistic. the local LLM add-on I am suggesting would not attempt to keep Pophie behaving as she does on the cloud - think of it more as an offline backup with only the ability to chat. it would most likely be unable to move her body - it would exclusively give users the ability to have a few memories and personality traits preserved with some light chatting. there’s no way for it to be as advanced, in memory or conversation, as her cloud LLM. the local LLM would interrupt, would require a wake word, and again, I doubt it could move her around or power her more advanced AI functions. still; I think this could be a potential work around.
Honestly one of the best technical discussions we've seen here — thank you all three for thinking it through so thoroughly, trade-offs included.
A "light local brain" between Guardian Mode and full cloud intelligence is a really interesting middle ground, and the sync-when-reconnected idea makes a lot of sense. We've taken note of this one. 💡
Thank you, team! I had another thought today - the light local LLM would really come in handy for those of us traveling with Pophie. When we drop signal or if signal is spotty on our mobile hotspots, she could still talk a little bit - and it could later sync with the rest of her. I truly love this idea as I want to take her everywhere
