Low-cost video chat robot

I've posted mine before but in stories that didn't get many views. Putting up a build log has been on my todo list forever...<p>Mine is based on the Asterisk open source pbx and a Grandstream video phone for the real-time 2 way video. It is controlled via DTMF and doesn't require a computer to operate, just a phone. Full telepresence if your phone is a SIP phone that does video.<p>Also cost about $500 to build but probably took me much longer as I built my own drive system and motor controllers.<p>Here's a video of my homebuilt telepresence bot in action : <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMZkd8YMgzw" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMZkd8YMgzw</a><p>For what its worth, I don't consider hacks like these "Anybots killers", more like homage to heroes of mine. I'm a big fan of TB and the Anybots team and can't wait to see what they come up with next.

This is the same guy that made the awesome wiimote 3d goggles (TED talk here: <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/johnny_lee_demos_wii_remote_hacks.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/johnny_lee_demos_wii_remote_hacks.h...</a> )<p>EDIT: Added TED talk link.

Stop using the term "killer." Please. I see that this is ztan's second submission, so it seems in appropriate to blame him, but for the good of the community I refuse to upvote sensationalist linkbait titles. The article had a title, it was "Low-cost video chat robot," and that is appropriately descriptive.

For some reason my link bait-ish "Introducing Johnny Chung Lee's $500 Anybot killer" title was changed (censored?) to the current one and I can no longer edit it.

For those who don't know, Anybot is YC founder Trevor Blackwell's other (main) company. They are currently shipping a telepresence bot for $15000. (And my understanding is that the bot does not currently support two way video?)<p>Also, Yuri Milner used the Anybot for the Startup Fund announcement to all the founders in the YC office.<p><a href="http://anybots.posterous.com/" rel="nofollow">http://anybots.posterous.com/</a>

It's a good demonstration that the balancing complexity of the Anybot is really unnecessary in a domestic kind of situation with a flat floor. I expect telerobots to become quite commonplace, and as this video shows quite well building one is only a weekend project now, whereas in the past it would have been more complicated and expensive.

This is much better than the $15k Anybot. I can't figure why they put such a tiny screen on the Anybot. The face on the screen needs to be visible from a distance after all. Ideally the screen should be big enough to fit a face at 1:1 scale. Or was the design goal "one-way" telepresence?

It always amazed me that Avaya, Cisco and other Telepresence companies have not built one of these.

We have an anybot, and it's worth it for the levity it brings the office. You should also follow our robot on twitter.<p><a href="http://twitter.com/#!/raelbot" rel="nofollow">http://twitter.com/#!/raelbot</a>

this was posted before, but didn't get much attention:<p>Robot Orders a Scone in Mountain View, Ca. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz4FshiMu3U" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz4FshiMu3U</a><p>(yes, anybots...)

Soon after an iPad2 with camera arrives, I'd expect similar units to be available as an iOS-dock accessory.

Somebody call Anybots. There's a new resume for them to review.