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by _joel16 hours ago |
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upvoteby Philip-J-Fry15 hours ago|
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That's a completely different class of robot. The Beni robot is just a toy, it's just connect the app and drive it around, record videos and do some fancy tricks like flips. It is not meant to be a platform you program yourself.

The Microduck is meant to be a hacker toy. Train it yourself, write software, hack it, etc.

It depends what you're trying to get for your daughter. Is it something to get her into robotics? Then probably the Microduck is the way. If it's literally just a toy, then the Beni robot is better because that's literally all it is.

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upvoteby modeless11 hours ago|
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I would describe the Microduck as more of a toy than Beni. Autonomous cameraman is a real application that Beni performs out of the box. I think you'll struggle to get Microduck to do anything genuinely useful.
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upvoteby onoesworkacct4 hours ago|
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IMO with that definition of "toy" you're overselling the value of performing useful work and underselling the value of farting about.
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upvoteby asadm14 hours ago|
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The creators of Beni seem to have promised that the platform will be open (including sim2real parts of Beni).

I have ordered Beni for my family. It's sturdy and more practical for careless fun.

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upvoteby ghostly_s7 hours ago|
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> Train it yourself, write software, hack it, etc.

it seems like the only useful capability this thing has is picking up very small items of clothing with I imagine a very low success rate.

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upvoteby _joel14 hours ago|
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yes to both :)
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upvoteby neom15 hours ago|
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MKBHD covered Beni the other day and it looks like a super super fun toy. Not sure about the educational value, but I was thinking about getting one for the kid in my life (me). https://youtu.be/mfmdXPT7nAM?t=592 (9:52)
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upvoteby rtkwe9 hours ago|
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My favorite bit from that was when he had it do a flip and the battery ejected from it's niche and it died. Also the constant suicide attempts from trying to run it on a table but that's a problem for any mobile robot and tabletop demos.
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upvoteby toasty22813 hours ago|
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Both are expensive e waste, companies come up every 5 years with these "house robots for kids", they're used for about 5 days, I've seen the cycle many times already
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upvoteby _carbyau_1 hours ago|
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I love Battletech. If the IP holders ever get their shit together and have a properly walking Vulture/Mad-Dog, I'm sold.

Bonus points for laser tag capability like those tabletop tanks.

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upvoteby robotresearcher8 hours ago|
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The household robot business other than vacuums are a classic way to lose your shirt, sadly.

Many, many startups and several megacorps have burned their money. Robots are so fun to make, if you have that spirit in you! But alas they are very, very hard to make valuable outside of manufacturing /warehousing/weapons.

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upvoteby random313 hours ago|
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Makes sense. Unless you can disassemble/reassemble. I guess selling kits (Meccano, Technics) would be the better approach. I recall countless hours building stuff and my kids love their Magnetiles and everything that lets them build in a free-form.
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upvoteby dominotw8 hours ago|
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nerds cannot resist despite knowing this full well. "for kids"
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upvoteby 3 hours ago|
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deleted
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upvoteby monkeydust14 hours ago|
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I got this for my kids https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doly/doly-more-than-a-r... earlier this year (after a much longer than expected wait on Kickstarter)...was good for a bit and had some fun but mostly gathering dust now. Occasionally will come out if friends are over.
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upvoteby serf15 hours ago|
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I believe the Microduck camera footage (the ad - reel) about 1000x more than the Mondo one.
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upvoteby quadrature15 hours ago|
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For what it’s worth the mondo team has been posting development log videos on Reddit since before they incorporated. They raised money so they now have ads with more production value, but they came from small beginnings and I do trust their product.
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upvoteby sowrabh15 hours ago|
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FWIW Beni also figured in MKBHD's review recently and he had good things to say about it too - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfmdXPT7nAM&t=590s
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upvoteby vavos15 hours ago|
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The mondo beni bot was featured on mkbhd recently looked to work pretty well and got a positive review, for what's that's worth [0]

[0] - https://youtu.be/mfmdXPT7nAM

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upvoteby tyre7 hours ago|
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Personally I wouldn't choose one that hasn't shipped. Hardware projects are notorious for delivering late, with fewer features, or not at all.

Microduck looks amazing, but the "Ships before Christmas 2026" is begging to be blown past. That's why I'm not pre-ordering. If it's around in the spring, let's go, but considering that HuggingFace just got acquired by Nvidia, I'm not sure where this all will go.

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upvoteby marcus_holmes4 hours ago|
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100%, and I go further to "don't buy hardware until it hits version 3" - version 1 is full of bugs, version 2 tries to include all the stuff they couldn't fit into the original version 1, so it's not until version 3 they've got a clear idea of what the thing should be and how to make it without bugs.

I have been wrong (I love my Remarkable 2), but it still holds as a principle ;)

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upvoteby lumost15 hours ago|
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As a kick-starter project is this thing actually real? My experience with kick-starter has been that the projects are almost universally faked.
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upvoteby _joel15 hours ago|
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totally, it's on MKBKD video posted in other comments. I watched it last week and hence why I'm split
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upvoteby reaperducer13 hours ago|
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As a kick-starter project is this thing actually real? My experience with kick-starter has been that the projects are almost universally faked.

I've only contributed to three kickstarters, and they all worked out well. But I think I'm more selective than most people, and generally don't jump on something until it's already been fully funded by other people.

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upvoteby rtkwe9 hours ago|
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Boni seems more like a closed project and I'd rather have something where access isn't an afterthought as indicated on the Kickstarter.

> Right now, we simply haven't reached any conclusions regarding developer tools, documentation, or access. We haven't done the planning or the groundwork yet. Our current plan is to look into all of this after we've shipped the first batch and things settle down a bit.

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upvoteby unglaublich15 hours ago|
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Will Beni/monodorobotics have open source software, or at least a hackable stack?
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upvoteby amelius14 hours ago|
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Hey we're on HN where __anything__ is hackable :)

(Except iDevices of course)

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