Furbys have been around for a while and they are an interesting (if annoying) toy that will teach the kids to be okay with their eventual robotic overlords. In the meantime, the latest version of the robotic companion/toy/annoyance uses Bluetooth LE to communicate with the owner and [Jeija] has been listening in on the Bluetooth communication, trying to reverse engineer the protocol in order to run code on Furby.
[Jeija] has made a lot of progress and can already control the Furby’s actions, antenna and backlight color, and change the Furby’s emotional state by changing the values of the Furby’s hungriness, tiredness, etc. [Jeija] has created a program that runs on top of Node.js and can communicate with the Furby and change its properties. [Jeija] has also discovered, and can bring up, a secret debug menu that displays in the Furby’s eyes. Yet to be discovered is how to run your own code on the Furby, however, [Jeija] is able to add custom audio to the official DLC files and upload them into the Furby.
[Jeija] points out the all this was done without taking a Furby apart, only by sniffing the Bluetooth communication between the robot and the controlling app (Android/iOS device.) Check out a similar hack on the previous generation of Furbys, as well as a replacement brain for them. We just hope that the designers included a red/green LED so that we will all know when the Furbys switch from good to evil.
The original used IR to communicate. I recall a Panasonic VCR remote (among others) could trick the thing into certain responses.
So do these use one common LCD that covers both eyes or two individual LCDs?
Given the amount of space between eyes, I’d say it’s two separate screens. Why do you ask?
Yes, i see it too. wrap the fur around eyes head, look at the furby in the eyes, you got a Bluetooth furby VR…
Furby mind-meld!
I tore one apart thinking they were to separate lcd’s because I wanted to put them in a mask, but it’s all one common lcd.
Thats what I kind of figured. One larger lcd is probably cheaper than two smaller ones plus you need interfaces for both unless they are SPI or something.
Only one eye is working. Any idea what may have happened?
The image of diagnostics displaying in the eyes is something I find deeply disturbing.
Everything about a Furby is deeply disturbing.
Even creepier if it were in red text, as in http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RoboCam
Seems way cooler than the default images/animations to me.
“Tampering with the mail is a federal offense” – OOOoooOOOooooo
This takes the cake for top hacks.
Well done Hackaday…
Same
where is the gitHub page link for this topic?
Hi I have a Furby boom unit that I purchased in the Netherlands, now the question is can the factory default Dutch language be changed to English ?