Goby Is a Tinypresence Robot with Big Possibilities

Charmed Labs – which brought us the Pixy and Pixy 2 computer vision systems – is at it again with their new Goby "tinypresence" (telepresence, but tiny) robot, now funding on Kickstarter. Goby moves via differential control, using two wheels as tall as the robot itself on either side of its body.

A servo-driven “tail” mechanism drags a ball behind Goby. This normally keeps it level, but also allows it to tilt up or down, and even right itself if it flips over.

It’s a very clever mechanism, and small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. The device features an ESP32-S3 processor, with a small camera and two LED headlights that enable it to poke around in confined spaces. A three-axis accelerometer is also implemented, along with an odometer and an ambient light sensor.

User interface for the little bot is through a smartphone or computer-based browser interface, letting the user move it around and view the camera feed with no additional software. It's open source and programmed using the Arduino IDE, making it quite an appealing educational/experimentation tool.

At the same time, Goby could have some actual “serious” uses in and of itself. Consider how great it would be for inspections of confined spaces, such as piping networks or certain types of machinery. One would just have to hope the Wi-Fi held out. Of course, as an open source device, perhaps a tethered version could be implemented.

If all of that wasn’t enough, you can also send a link out to allow someone to remotely control it using WebRTC peer-to-peer networking. The software used to make this happen is called “BitBang,” which is currently in beta, but could eventually be quite a big deal.