the companion bot that talks to you! (a local AI in action) @DigiKey Adafruit Industries Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! [Video]

Shawn Hymel and Odd Jayy from DigiKey introduce Digit, a one-of-a-kind, bug-like AI companion that sits on your shoulder and engages in real conversations! Created through a collaboration between Shawn and Jayy, Digit is more than just a quirky robot–it’s powered by a local Large Language Model (LLM), making it capable of natural, real-time dialogue without relying on the cloud.

Shawn asking Jayy about the inspiration behind Digit. Jayy shares his vision for this shoulder-mounted bot and how he brought it to life. Then a look into the technical magic behind the scenes: Digit’s brain is running on an Nvidia Jetson Orin Nano, a portable powerhouse that enables all of its AI functionality to operate locally.

Here’s how Digit works:

1. Microphone to Speech-to-Text: Digit listens to its surroundings, waiting for keywords.
2. Keyword Detection: When a keyword is recognized, the next phrase is captured.
3. LLM Processing: That phrase is passed to a local instance of …