Open source software for the Pillar Codi Robot
Coming up with a new firmware for this device is worth the time for a few reasons:
- These devices are cheap and readily available on ebay
- They look like a Reddit avatar
- They have all the right peripherals to make a cool IoT device
- The company is unresponsive and maybe out of business
Here's what I've got so far:
MetalCodi! I have made custom SD contents, located in SD_Metalcodi to make Codi play some death metal songs. Simply replace the files on the interal SD with the contents of this folder.
To access the SD Codi will need to be disassembled and you will need to scrape the glue of the sides of SD card holder so it can be unlocked, removed and inserted in your computer for writing.
I have disassembled the toy and found what hardware it is using:
- Main processor: XR871ET
- Audio processor: A101
- Bluetooth(?): JL AS20AP24150
- Storage: GD25Q64C
Road-map:
- Acquire USB to Serial converter and create custom USB plug for reading/writing firmware to XR871 chip. DONE! See WiKi for How-to: https://github.com/Shamanon/opencodi/wiki/Serial-Connection
- Determine if existing firmware image can be de-compiled and edited or if a new FW will need to be written from scratch.
- Trace out all connections and create a detailed schematic of the motherboard.
- Create custom firmware. Can I make this thing run Linux?
- Use Codi as a control hub for smart devices similar to Siri or Alexa... Mycroft or Rhasspy?
Ignored files/folders:
- SDK: This is where I clone the XRadio sdk into my project https://github.com/XradioTech/XR871SDK
- SD_Contents: This is where I put the files off of the SD card in the Codi in case I need them later