Vector

Vector is a little AI-powered robot that is packed with technology—and character. It's designed as a robot companion and helper for people at home. Vector was developed by Anki, a San Francisco startup founded by Boris Sofman, Mark Palatucci, and Hanns Tappeiner, who met as students in the PhD program at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute. The company's first products were the robot racing games Anki Drive and Anki Overdrive in 2013 and 2015, respectively. They were followed by Cozmo, a small programmable robot, and then Vector, a social AI-powered robot released in 2018. Anki raised a total of US $182.5 million from Andreessen Horowitz, JP Morgan, and other investors. In April 2019, after failing to secure a critical round of funding, Anki shut down. Later that year, Anki assets, including Overdrive, Cozmo, and Vector, were acquired by Digital Dream Labs, in Pittsburgh, Pa. The company now offers Vector 2.0, which received both hardware and software upgrades.

Changes between Vector 1.0 and 2.0

Unscrewable Battery Compartment added to make battery replacements much easier
JST connector added to remove the need to solder new replacement batteries
Motors made quieter
New screen added

If you need to replace the battery on your vector, a 503040 sized battery with 600mah is recommended, make sure it has a JST connector if you have a Vector 2.0.

Vector SDK

The SDK gives full access to all of Vector's hardware and software features available from Vector's firmware. This even includes features currently not available from of the official Python SDK including face enrollment, and adjusting Vector's permanent settings. The API design follows the design of the Python SDK but deviates in a few places for simplicity or consistency with the underlying gRPC API.

OSKR

OSKR was a service provided by DDL to allow people to install custom firmware on their Vector for a fee. As of June 2025 the only way to get OSKR is to buy a Vector 2.0 from the DDL Store that is pre-loaded with OSKR. If you would like to install Custom Firmware on your Vector, the easiest (and cost-free) way is to use unlock-prod.OTA