This guy is really cute! I'd hate to hack him. eek

I know right? Lol , wait till the new wears off :). Give him the gift of ezb and a camera and he's a watch dog :)

If I can become proficient in utilizing ez bits in auto123D then maybe I could make a 3d printed version of this dude. It's a cool concept.

This guy has caught my eye a walmart as well. It's looks nice. I was digging the feet a lot.

Jstarne1, Thanks for sharing the Zoomer dog. It is a great way to introduce robots to young grandkids. I will have to check local availibilty and pricing. Thanks, Steve S

My kids are really fond of the Zoomer Interactive Puppy and consider it to be a top robot dog among others in these times. The grounds behind selecting this one is that I count it to be a great toy for kids although most of us (the kids especially) love to own a live pet at home and most significantly, owning a live pet is a vast responsibility which is required to be learned at a young age.

I’d really appreciate if you could kindly please share your views. :)

the zoomer is great.here's another dog faster chip.

Has anyone hacked Chip or Zoomer?

I have a Chip. I am tempted to take it apart to see if it has a UART connector in it like WowWee's MiP. The Chip dog is really an interesting piece of tech. It comes with a wrist watch that you can set up so that the dog follows it. I have strapped it to our real dog's collar and she freaks because Chip follows her around! LOL

Can you take it apart and check. If it does, let me know. I know the woweee guys pretty well and can get the communication protocol like I did with th mip. But i won’t bother them if there is no uart.

You bet! I'll take photos.

Watching!

Okay, Below are a couple photos / diagrams of the board in CHiP's body. There is no UART port, however there are two possible inputs on this board. Take a look. I will take CHiP's head apart and post pictures of what is in there.

CHiP's Brain... It was a tough bugger to get out.

I find it interesting that the white circled solder pads on both boards are numbered sequentially starting with the head - P1 thru P4 and in the 2nd board in the dogs body - P5 thru P7.

Quote:

The Chip dog is really an interesting piece of tech. It comes with a wrist watch that you can set up so that the dog follows it.

I have been noodling around with ideas to make EZ-B do this reliably (ie, not following a glyph or color or shape. Some kind of beacon) for ever. Would love to know how they do this and see if it could be duplicated.

Alan

The wrist band has 4 very small IR LEDs on it that sends it the command signals to follow. The face of the wrist band/watch has 5 buttons on it. A middle circle button surrounded by 4 other buttons that enable you to send it specific commands. You are also able to take control of the dog by using the watch as a joystick.

The dog does have BT and WiFi and you can connect to it with an app that you download. The app enables you to control the dog better than the wrist band/watch. It is also more responsive.

This is actually the first commercially robot that I purchased that leverages IR, BT and WiFi.

I think I found the schematic breakout for CHiP. It calls out many of the circuits featured on this dog to be a coincidence. The diagram has references to the gesture sensors, motor drive, KNRF51822-A24-AAH Karin BT/WiFi module, red/blue LED eye circuit (the dog's mood is interpreted by shades of blue, purple and red in his eyes) and accelerator/gyro. I would also like to note that if this is the schematic break-out for CHiP, then there is a notation of a UART port!

I found this by searching for "Early Light Industrial Co. Ltd" on FCCID.IO website. Below is the link.

https://fccid.io/OKP0820N/Schematics/Circuit-Diagram-2751406.pdf

@TheTechGuru,

Have you looked into using the Pololu IR Beacon for "follow me" ?

www.pololu.com/product/701/

Regards, Frank

Quote:

Have you looked into using the Pololu IR Beacon for "follow me" ?

I will now!

I already have the watch as joystick thing down, just not the following me without active control : https://synthiam.com/Community/Questions/9125

Alan

I'd love to see this dog with an EZ-B "backpack" wired to its back.

Okay, new update and theory. I think the open solder pads in the dogs head is for a USB TTL module. See my diagram and notes below.

I have one as well watching this thread closely.

I've provided as much detail as I can. Anyone have any thoughts on the proposed USB TTL input? Is there a way I can test it? All feedback welcome!

@bumsteadsean I'm unsure about the port in Chips head, it doesn't really seem like a standard connection, I'm thinking it might be a programming header for the Black blob controller.

I am very hopeful about this mystery port that you pointed out:

This seems like either a UART port or an I2C port. Either of them would likely be useful for hacking. The best way to find out would be to hook up a logic analyzer to the middle two pins and try and decode what's happening while the robot is on. I'm guessing that the 3.28V pin is either the I2C SCL pin or UART TX pin.

@Dj and Community,

Based on my teardown of WowWee CHiP and the detailed circuit diagram that I found on the FCC website that I believe is for this toy dog, I am more convinced that there is a UART port on the larger circuit board that is located in the dog's body. I however lack the hardware and knowledge to go any further in interfacing and confirming this so I have a proposal for you all...

I was able to pick up both control boards - completely wired for CHiP off of eBay. In an effort to hack into and expand this robotic dog's capabilities with EZ-B, I am willing to mail both boards and the battery to someone on this forum to confirm the port, decode and then share findings with this Community.

I tested the boards and they are in working order. It is weird to hear the dog bark and see his eyes light up with no body. My posts above have details on what each wire lead goes to (motors, sensors, eyes, etc.).

Anyone interested and wanting to work on this please let me know. I live in Clarkston, Michigan and will have the boards in the mail ASAP!

Circuit-Diagram-2751406.pdf

@bumsteadsean

That's the wowwee Mip circuit (0820) chip's product number is 0805.

I reached out to my guy at WowWee. He’ll get back to me I’m sure - he’s pretty on the ball when it comes to this stuff.

@ptp, that is why I refer to much smarter people such as yourself! Great catch.

I did some more digging and came up with the following link. It has less to do with CHiP, but it is worth a look at as it contains many internal photos and descriptions for many other WW toys. There is even an FCC filing in 2007 for a variation of something that looks very close to being a Fingerling.

https://fccid.io/OKP

That’s their own micro. They use that for all their toys. Unfortunately, knowing the micro has little to do with the command set. If it’s not published, maybe I’ll hear back from woweee and put a Control together for the command set.

It also occurred to me that the protocol for the MIP may be the same. They most likely use the same protocol, since that's cost saving for development. Try connecting the ez-b to the uart of the CHIP with the MIP instructions. Use the MIP movement panel: https://synthiam.com/Tutorials/Help.aspx?id=204

@jstarne1 did you ever hack the Zoomer? Also has anyone found FCC docs on it? I found this, which is also from the Zoomer line but it's a horse apparently. Probably lots of design similarities.

I took apart the main chassis today to look around. I didn't pull the board out yet though. 

Once opened, there is a spring that attaches between the waist actuator and the top of what I'm calling the Main Body (this section). It's really the upper abdomen, so maybe we should call it that instead.

Then, I took off the purple plastic panel that protects the motor wires from getting caught in the spring / waist movements to reveal 5 motor drivers, each with ORANGE / RED / BROWN. Can anyone give their best guess on what those motors take in terms of power and what signals the lines are. 

I'll attempt to post more as I dive in, but it would be cool if other people here also post what they can find about Zoomer. Apparently there used to be an app? Does the dog have WIFI or Bluetooth? Maybe there's a handy UART interface like CHIP has so hacking is much easier and we don't have to circuit bend...

Cheers, Patchwork :D

Hi, I never had a Zoomer in hand to play with. I shifted focus to school for a while. I wonder if anyone else ended up hacking the little guy. :)