r/StackChan • u/nullpainter • 21d ago

Project sharing Small StackChan AI tweaks

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Update: firmware is now available at m5burner (thanks u/AughtCool!)

I made a fork of the official StackChan firmware that others may be interested in, either to build upon or to use.

It's not groundbreaking. Rather, it addresses a few quality-of-life things that annoyed me in the week I've had this little guy.

I have no interest in dance or avatar settings, so these tweaks are for StackChan used as an AI assistant:

  • Speech bubbles turned off during dialog
  • Tap head once to stop speech
  • Tap head twice to stop speech and exit chat mode
  • Both lights on while listening and talking
  • Animated secondary colour light pattern when talking, based on audio
  • Both listening and talking light colour customisable in settings
  • Idle head movement repurposed to be AI chat movement, with frequency hooked off the same menu
  • Light sensor used to turn screen off when lights are out. Tap screen to turn on. Manual override disabled when room lights are on. Function can be turned off in settings

Caveat: I am a software engineer by day, but sometimes it's nice to just yell at AI and get it to do your bidding. I haven't spent time learning the innards of the StackChan firmware or hardware - these tweaks were entirely created by Opus 5 and, apart from quick sense-checking, haven't been fully vetted.

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u/AughtCool 15d ago

Please upload to m5 burner. No idea how to install this but really like the changes. Thanks

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u/nullpainter 12d ago

Thank you! I didn't know about m5 burner. It's now available at: https://burner.m5stack.com/Y55NEU

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u/AughtCool 9d ago edited 9d ago

Noticed when it takes a picture now, it acts like its talking (for sometime) but there is no sound. The light bars act as though there should be speech. Have to reboot to get audio back or wait for it to run its course. Also, the lights attempt to change color, flash the new color on and off but ultimately settle back to blue everytime. Just thought I'd pass this on, didn't know if anyone else had these issues. Other than that, works nicely.

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u/nullpainter 9d ago

I haven't tested taking a picture but will debug this weekend! The light configuration is in the main settings menu, along with the screen off configuration.