Why I'm putting Hermes into a robot (Reachy Mini)

No personal assistant has been useful. Alexa, Google Home, Siri; none has been useful beyond setting timers. They lagged and lacked basic intelligence. Instant disqualification from being a useful assistant. Hermes has been a great agent. Simple setup, reliable integration, and powered by your latest LLMs. Equipped with a computer and the internet, it solves everyday problems easily.

Building shopping lists, for example. I simply send a voice note to Hermes the moment I notice that we’re short. “We need more diapers” is acknowledged with “Added diapers to your next shop”. En-route to Costco, I ask for the list. Easy. Scheduling too. “Remind me to buy housewarming gift for next Sunday’s event”. Event added to calendar. Reminder scheduled. “Remind me every day until I buy the damn thing.”

I credit these conveniences to smartphones. Upload photo, record voice note, share links—one tap to produce intelligent work. Delete mundanities by sending a DM. The affordances of smartphones enabled this new mode of operation. What’s beyond smartphones? Novel affordances will reveal novel applications.

I have a Reachy Mini on my desk: a cute robot with a camera for eyes, a microphone for ears, and a speaker for voice. Its brain lives on the adjacent mini-PC, where it shares a dwelling with my Hermes agent. I knew what I had to do.

So begins the journey.

I want to solve the following problems:

• Fast, expressive, interruptible voice interface
• Active listening using both vocal and gestural feedback
• Asynchronous work i.e. spawn subagents while maintaining conversation
• Tease out memories and stories. Stream and save for meaningful digital archive