Guide · updated 2026-10-21
AI hardware for robot and agent builds
Found via Joseph Zhou's AI Hardware list (josephzhou.me/ai), which covers 127 pieces of AI hardware. We went through all of it and pulled out the 42 boards that make sense for a robot or a body for your AI agent, split into voice boards, AI cameras and robot brains. Every row links to the maker's page and, where there is one, the code. Builds people have actually finished with this kind of hardware are linked as use cases further down. Prices change often, so check the maker page.
Robots on the list
Three entries on Joseph's list are robots you can build or program, and all three already have cards here. Stack-chan is the cute M5Stack desk robot (M5Stack sells it built), Petoi's Bittle X is an ESP32 robot dog kit, and JARVIS Desk Bot is an ESP32-S3 robot that talks while a Hermes agent works.
Voice boards for an agent body
For a robot that talks to an AI agent, start here. Each board has a mic, and most have a speaker or a screen for a face. Free firmware like XiaoZhi or Hermes Gadget turns one of these into a voice terminal for an AI model. Check the firmware's board list before you buy.
| Hardware | Maker | Chip | What it's good for | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CoreS3 | M5Stack | ESP32-S3 | Camera, mic and a 2-inch touch screen in one unit. It's the core inside the Stack-chan kit. | Maker page · Code |
| Core2 | M5Stack | ESP32 | The older 2-inch touch core with a mic and speaker built in | Maker page · Code |
| Atom Echo | M5Stack | ESP32 | Tiny mic and speaker puck, a common Home Assistant voice satellite | Maker page · Code |
| AtomS3R AI Chatbot Kit | M5Stack | ESP32-S3 | Thumb-size voice chat kit with a color screen | Maker page · Code |
| Atom VoiceS3R | M5Stack | ESP32-S3 | Palm-size mic and speaker board for voice projects | Maker page · Code |
| M5StickS3 | M5Stack | ESP32-S3 | Pocket stick with a screen and mic, an easy first board | Maker page · Code |
| Tab5 | M5Stack | ESP32-P4 | 5-inch 720p touch tablet if your agent needs a bigger face | Maker page · Code |
| ESP32-S3 Touch AMOLED 1.8 | Waveshare | ESP32-S3 | Watch-size AMOLED touch screen with a mic and speaker | Maker page · Code |
| ESP32-S3 Touch LCD 1.54 | Waveshare | ESP32-S3 | 240 x 240 touch screen, two mics and a speaker on one small board | Maker page · Code |
| ESP32-C6 Touch AMOLED 2.16 | Waveshare | ESP32-C6 | 480 x 480 AMOLED touch screen with two mics | Maker page · Code |
| ESP32-S3-BOX-3 | Espressif | ESP32-S3 | Espressif's own enclosed voice assistant kit with offline speech recognition | Maker page · Code |
| ESP32-S3-Korvo-2 | Espressif | ESP32-S3 | Audio dev board with a two-mic array | Maker page · Code |
| Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition | Nabu Casa | ESP32-S3 | Home Assistant's official voice puck. Its ESPHome firmware is open, so you can reflash it. | Maker page · Code |
| SenseCAP Watcher | Seeed Studio | ESP32-S3 + Himax HX6538 | Camera, round touch screen and voice in one device that watches a room for you | Maker page · Code |
| UNIHIKER K10 | DFRobot | ESP32-S3 | Learning board with a screen, camera, mic and speaker | Maker page · Code |
| Gravity Offline Voice Recognition | DFRobot | DF2301Q | Module that hears preset voice commands with no internet connection | Maker page · Code |
| Nicla Voice | Arduino | nRF52832 + Syntiant NDP120 | Low-power board that keeps listening for sounds and keywords | Maker page · Code |
AI cameras: eyes for a robot
These run vision models on the camera itself, so a small robot can spot people or objects without sending video to a server. The OAK-D cameras add stereo depth, which helps a robot judge distance.
| Hardware | Maker | Chip | What it's good for | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| XIAO ESP32S3 Sense | Seeed Studio | ESP32-S3 | Fingertip-size board with a detachable camera and a mic. Our ESP32 iPhone Agent card uses the XIAO ESP32S3. | Maker page · Code |
| Grove Vision AI V2 | Seeed Studio | Himax HX6538 | Low-power vision module with a neural network accelerator | Maker page · Code |
| reCamera 2002w | Seeed Studio | SG2002 | Programmable Linux camera that runs vision models on the device | Maker page · Code |
| MaixCAM | Sipeed | SG2002 | Camera and touch screen you program in Python with MaixPy | Maker page · Code |
| MaixCAM2 | Sipeed | AX630C | Bigger MaixCAM with a camera, touch screen and audio | Maker page · Code |
| Raspberry Pi AI Camera | Raspberry Pi | Sony IMX500 | Camera module that runs the neural network on the sensor, so the Pi stays free | Maker page · Code |
| OAK-D Lite | Luxonis | Intel Movidius Myriad X | Color plus stereo depth camera with onboard AI | Maker page · Code |
| OAK-D S2 | Luxonis | Intel Movidius Myriad X | Stereo depth camera in a tougher enclosure | Maker page · Code |
| Nicla Vision | Arduino | STM32H747 | Tiny board with a camera, mic and motion sensor | Maker page · Code |
| HUSKYLENS 2 | DFRobot | Kendryte K230 | AI vision sensor with a touch screen and ready-made recognition models | Maker page · Code |
| OpenMV N6 | OpenMV | STM32N6 | Python-programmable camera board with a neural network accelerator | Maker page · Code |
| OpenMV AE3 | OpenMV | Alif Ensemble E3 | Small OpenMV camera with two neural network accelerators | Maker page · Code |
| UnitV2 | M5Stack | SSD202D | Standalone Linux camera for image recognition | Maker page · Code |
Robot brains: local AI compute
These are for a robot that has to run bigger models on board. The Jetson kits are full computers, while the Raspberry Pi AI HATs add AI to a Pi 5.
| Hardware | Maker | Chip | What it's good for | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit | NVIDIA | Jetson Orin Nano 8GB | NVIDIA's dev kit for local generative AI and robotics | Maker page · Code |
| reComputer J4012 | Seeed Studio | Jetson Orin NX 16GB | A step up from the Orin Nano for heavier vision and AI models | Maker page · Code |
| Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ | Raspberry Pi | Hailo-8 / Hailo-8L | Adds local vision inference to a Raspberry Pi 5 | Maker page · Code |
| Raspberry Pi AI HAT+ 2 | Raspberry Pi | Hailo-10H | Pi 5 add-on with 8GB of its own RAM for running LLMs and vision-language models locally | Maker page · Code |
| LLM630 Compute Kit | M5Stack | AX630C | Small edge AI kit with Ethernet and Wi-Fi that runs adapted vision and language models | Maker page · Code |
| AI Pyramid | M5Stack | AX8850 | Edge AI host in a clear pyramid case | Maker page · Code |
| LicheeRV Nano | Sipeed | SG2002 | Tiny Linux board with a built-in neural processor | Maker page · Code |
| UGen300 / UGen200 | ASUS | Hailo-10H / Hailo-8L | Plug-in Hailo AI accelerators from ASUS | Maker page · Code |
| Coralboard SL / SR | Synaptics × Google Research | Astra SL2619 / SR250 | Low-power edge AI dev platforms | Maker page · Code |
| ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board | Espressif | ESP32-P4 + ESP32-C6 | Espressif's P4 board with camera, display and audio connectors | Maker page · Code |
| T-Display P4 | LilyGO | ESP32-P4 | Handheld ESP32-P4 board with a 4-inch touch screen and a camera | Maker page · Code |
| Portenta H7 | Arduino | STM32H747 | Dual-core board that runs small machine learning models | Maker page · Code |
Screens and gadgets people have built with
Some of the boards on the list already have open-source projects that turn them into something useful on a desk or a wall. We added five of them as new cards.
- emini Home: a four-color e-paper poster of your day on the ZECTRIX NOTE4C
- WT32-SC01 Plus desk companion: clock, weather and internet radio on an ESP32-S3 touchscreen
- AWTRIX NG: turn a Ulanzi pixel clock into a notification display for your smart home and scripts
- openHASP: build a touchscreen wall panel for Home Assistant from a cheap ESP32 display
- Start with the Cheap Yellow Display: an ESP32 with a built-in touchscreen and a community of projects
What we left out
Most of the list is gadgets with no robot or agent angle: AI glasses, clip-on recorders, action and webcam cameras, e-ink frames, LoRa mesh radios, smartwatches and plain display boards. We also skipped a desk robot with no build or code to link, and two entries whose maker pages didn't load for us. Joseph's full list is at josephzhou.me/ai.
Common questions
What's the cheapest board that can give an AI agent a voice?
Small ESP32-S3 boards with a mic and speaker, such as M5Stack's Atom VoiceS3R or Waveshare's touch boards, sit at the low end of this list. Pair one with free firmware like XiaoZhi. Prices vary by store, so check the maker page.
Which AI camera should a small robot use?
If the robot runs on a Raspberry Pi, the Raspberry Pi AI Camera runs the model on the sensor. If it needs to judge distance, an OAK-D camera gives stereo depth as well as color.
Where does this list come from?
From Joseph Zhou's AI Hardware list at josephzhou.me/ai. We picked the robot-relevant boards, wrote our own descriptions and linked each maker's page and code.
What to build next
Builds that share a board, robot or agent with this one.
Caduceus: a voice robot body for Hermes Agent, wired up over MCPAlso built on ESP32
Hermes Gadget: an ESP32 or Raspberry Pi voice body for your Hermes AgentAlso built on ESP32
JARVIS Desk Bot: a talking ESP32 desk robot for your AI agentAlso built on ESP32- Talk to the OpenAI Realtime API from an ESP32 over WebRTCAlso built on ESP32
openHASP: build a touchscreen wall panel for Home Assistant from a cheap ESP32 displayAlso built on ESP32
Reflect: a voice-and-light assistant on an M5Stack CoreS3Also built on M5Stack
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