01
Create
Describe your pet and Studio draws its face, expressions and movements with your own OpenRouter key. Or make one in Codex with our open-source skill and upload it.
Design its face, give it a personality and a voice, talk to it in your browser, then give it a little body on an ESP32 board.

One of our premade pets. Yours gets its own face, voice and way of seeing the world.
Meet the pets01 / HOW IT WORKS
Three steps
Start on your screen and add a device whenever you like. You bring your own AI provider keys and pay those providers directly.
01
Describe your pet and Studio draws its face, expressions and movements with your own OpenRouter key. Or make one in Codex with our open-source skill and upload it.
02
Give it a name, a personality and a voice, then talk to it in your browser. Talking uses your own OpenRouter key, plus a Cartesia key for Cartesia voices.
03
Install our firmware from Chrome or Edge on an inexpensive Waveshare ESP32-S3 board, link it with the code on its screen, and send your pets to it.
A character from your imagination. A face that talks, reacts and does its own little thing. Our open-source AI Pets Sprite Skill guides you from a first idea to an animated companion.

Tell Codex about your pet’s shape, colors and quirks, or start from a reference image. Refine the concept together and approve the look before the animation begins.

The skill creates speaking frames, blinks and little glances, plus listening, thinking and touch reactions. Each pose keeps the face you chose, so your character stays recognizably yours.

Add joyful, goofy, dreamy and sweet moments, then a signature trick of their own. Angel lights up with a burst of joy; your pet might wiggle its ears, juggle mushrooms or get distracted by its own tail.

Review the movement in a browser, refine what needs work and export a compact .aipetframes animation pack. You get the editable artwork and preview too, ready for a compatible AI Pets device.
Start on your screen. Give it a home when you’re ready. Create and preview with Codex’s built-in image generation—no separate image API key or hardware needed. A compatible ESP32-S3 device and AI Pets firmware bring the face into a little voice companion; connected features need an AI Pets account.
Meet the hardwareShown here: real frames from Angel’s sprite pack. Your character, its artwork and its little tricks are yours to shape.
02 / PERSONALITY
Shape who they become
Write who your pet is in plain words: how it talks, what it loves and what it won’t do. Then pick a voice and hear it before you talk.
“Bright, affectionate, and just mischievous enough.”
Every word you write shapes how your pet answers, in your browser and on its board.
Luna · personality



03 / AT HOME
Made for real routines
Once it has a body, your pet lives on its little screen and talks when you tap it. What it remembers stays in your hands.
Tap the screen and speak. Your pet answers in its own voice.
Long-press and your pet tells a story from its own world.
It remembers your name and routines. Turn memory off or make it forget.
Always your companion
Send up to three of your pets to one board and swipe between them. Each keeps its own face, voice and personality.
Open by design
AI Pets gives people an easy way to talk with a personal voice agent in a focused little device. Its firmware is open source under the Apache-2.0 license, so makers can inspect it, modify it, and create something entirely their own on affordable, openly documented ESP32 hardware.
It installs from Chrome or Edge on three Waveshare ESP32-S3 boards: the round 1.85B, the AMOLED 2.06 and the LCD 1.54.
04 / CHARACTERS
Meet the pets
Each face has its own energy, voice and way of seeing the world. Let them inspire your own, or copy a community pet into your account.

A little star. A very curious companion.

Small paws. Slow days. Big curiosity.

A digital mystic with a mischievous spark.

Big moustache. Bigger personality.

A tiny explorer with a lantern full of wonder.

Quiet and cozy. Best conversations after dark.
05 / FIELD GUIDE
Stories and ideas
Explore the history, possibilities, and everyday life of AI companions.
01 · Meet
Trace robot pets from early mechanical animals and Sony AIBO to therapeutic companions, desktop robots, and today's character-driven AI pets.
Read the guide02 · Understand
A balanced review of research on robot pets, loneliness, dementia care, stress, privacy, emotional dependence, and responsible use.
Read the guide03 · Build
Explore the architecture of an ESP32 AI pet, from display and audio hardware to cloud voice, animated faces, credentials, and testing.
Read the guideMake yours
Create an account to start. You don’t need a device yet: your pet lives in your browser until you give it one.