Guide · updated 2026-10-17

Cheap ESP32 robot projects you can build

ESP32 robot projects here run from about $7 (an ESP32-S3 that lets an AI use an iPhone) to a $319 Petoi dog kit. The fastest start is a ready-made $99 Stack-chan, or flashing free XiaoZhi voice firmware onto a board.

Prices on this page run from a $7 ESP32 board to a $319 robot dog kit. The quickest start is a ready-made $99 Stack-chan, or flashing the free XiaoZhi voice firmware onto a board, which one builder did with Claude Code in a little over 4 minutes. An ESP32 is a cheap little chip with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so the talking robots here send your voice to an AI model on a server or your own computer and play back the answer.

Project	What it does	Price	Difficulty
ESP32 iPhone Agent	Lets an AI model tap and type on a real iPhone	About $7 for the board (README), plus your iPhone	Medium
Stack-chan	Cute desk robot with a face, servos and voice chat	$99 ready-made, $125 with remote (M5Stack)	Easy
XiaoZhi	Talking AI chatbot firmware that can move servos through MCP	Free firmware; works on 171 board variants, prices vary	Medium
JARVIS Desk Bot	ESP32-S3 desk robot that talks while your Hermes agent works	Not listed	Medium
Kame32	3D-printed robot dog with 8 servos and Wi-Fi control	Not listed	Easy to medium
Petoi Bittle X	ESP32 robot dog kit with 9 servos and voice control	$319 kit, $339 pre-assembled (Petoi)	Easy
Otto DIY	Tiny 4-servo walking robot for kids	$33.99 electronics kit without the printed body (Keyestudio)	Easy
Old Roomba + ESP8266	Puts an old Roomba into Home Assistant	About $6 in parts (README)	Medium
Waveshare UGV rover	Raspberry Pi rover with an ESP32 running the motors	Not listed	Easy

Desk robots that talk

XiaoZhi is the most popular place to start, with more than 31,000 GitHub stars. It turns an ESP32 board with a mic and speaker into a voice assistant that talks to models like Qwen and DeepSeek, and it can switch servos, LEDs and other hardware through MCP. It supports 171 board variants and needs ESP-IDF 6.0.1 or newer. @xiaomovps flashed it with Claude Code in a little over 4 minutes without writing a line of code, then wrote up a beginner guide in Chinese.

JARVIS Desk Bot builds on XiaoZhi. Say "Jarvis", ask for something, and the robot gives short spoken updates while a Hermes agent does the work. Speech recognition and the voice run on a server on your own computer. Stack-chan is the friendliest option: M5Stack sells it ready-made for $99, and you add expressions or voice chat as JavaScript "MODs".

If you run a Hermes Agent, Hermes Gadget turns an ESP32-S3 board into a hold-to-talk voice terminal for it. The ESP32 pack doesn't cover Hermes Gadget. Its install kit is on this site.

Robots that walk

Kame32 is a 3D-printed robot dog by Javier Isabel with two servos per leg and its own PCB. You drive it over Wi-Fi from a phone or laptop, and the PCB takes a little soldering. If you don't have a printer, Petoi's Bittle X is an ESP32 robot dog kit for $319 that Petoi says takes about an hour to assemble, and you can program it with blocks, Python or C++. Otto is a 4-servo walker made for kids. Its library was written for the Arduino Nano and lists ESP32 support as still in development.

Give an AI agent hands

ESP32 iPhone Agent turns a $7 Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32S3 into the eyes and hands of an AI model. The iPhone mirrors its screen to the board, a vision model picks the next step, and the board taps and types as a USB mouse and keyboard. You need an iPhone on iOS 18 or newer, and no computer or jailbreak. The README warns you to follow only its own install steps and never run commands posted in issues or comments.

Let an AI agent use a real iPhone with a $7 ESP32

The ESP32 as a helper chip

In some bigger robots the ESP32 runs the motors and sensors while a Raspberry Pi does the thinking. Waveshare's UGV rovers work this way, with the Pi sending JSON commands to an ESP32 driver board over a serial link. The older ESP8266 chip can rescue old gadgets too: about $6 in parts puts an old Roomba into Home Assistant.

Let a coding agent do the setup

Every project card on Robot Use Cases has a prompt you can paste into Claude Code, Cursor or Codex to clone the repo, install the toolchain and flash the board. Read what it plans to flash before you say yes, and keep a hand near the power switch the first time the motors move.

Common questions

What is the cheapest ESP32 robot project?

ESP32 iPhone Agent needs only an ESP32-S3 board that costs about $7, plus an iPhone you already own. If you have an old Roomba, the ESP8266 Home Assistant hack is about $6 in parts.

Can an ESP32 run AI by itself?

Not a large language model. Voice robots like XiaoZhi and JARVIS Desk Bot pick up your voice on the ESP32, send it to a model on a server or your own computer, and play the reply.

What's the best ESP32 desk robot?

For something ready-made, Stack-chan at $99 from M5Stack. For the biggest community and the most supported boards, XiaoZhi. If you already use a Hermes agent, JARVIS Desk Bot gives it a voice.

Do I need to know how to code?

Not for the basics. Builders use coding agents like Claude Code to flash firmware and set things up, and each card on this site has a prompt for that. You still have to wire up or assemble the hardware yourself.

Which ESP32 board should I buy?

Check the project first. The voice and camera projects here use ESP32-S3 boards. ESP32 iPhone Agent needs an S3 with native USB and PSRAM and was tested on the Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32S3. XiaoZhi lists 171 supported board variants.

What to build next

Builds that share a board, robot or agent with this one.

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