ReadingBuddy Reachy Mini BookReader
🤖📚 Reachy Mini App • Kid-friendly reading companion

ReadingBuddy

Turn your Reachy Mini into a book-reading buddy with fun voices, page memory, and a simple camera-to-reading flow that kids can actually use.

📸 OCR from camera 🎭 Character voices 🧠 Resume by book 🔊 Hybrid TTS
Voices
Tech Storyteller • Princess • Superhero • Robot Hero
Best for
Picture books + short pages kids follow along
✅ Designed for demos (fast + reliable)
🧩 Works with dashboard install

✨ What ReadingBuddy does

ReadingBuddy turns your Reachy Mini into a book-reading companion. Put a book in front of Reachy, choose a voice, capture a page, confirm the photo, and it reads out loud — while remembering where you stopped so kids can resume next time.

Core features

  • 📸
    Smart OCRCapture a page from Reachy’s camera and extract readable text.
  • 🎭
    4 character voicesTech Storyteller, Princess, Superhero, Robot Hero.
  • 🧠
    Page memorySaves your place per book for easy “resume”.

Kid-friendly flow

  • ✅
    Preview + confirmKids can confirm the photo before OCR/reading starts.
  • 📚
    Built-in storiesRead preloaded public-domain stories without a camera.
  • 🎮
    Simple controlsRead, Retake, Next Page + Read, Again, Stop, hold-to-talk.

🚀 How to install on Reachy Mini

  1. Start the daemon (wireless version) and open the dashboard at http://REACHY_MINI_IP:8000.
  2. Click Install from Hugging Face.
  3. Search for reachy_mini_bookreader and click Install.
  4. Open Applications → ReadingBuddy / BookReader → Run.
  5. Click the ⚙️ settings icon on the app tile to open the full web UI.

Prefer CLI? You can publish/install via reachy-mini-app-assistant.

🎮 How a reading session works

  1. Enter a book title + page number (or resume saved progress).
  2. Select a voice (optional: press Test Voice).
  3. Press Read From Camera and hold the page steady in front of Reachy.
  4. Confirm the captured photo in the preview modal.
  5. Reachy runs OCR and reads the page aloud.
  6. Use controls: Read Retake Next page Again Stop
Tip: For glossy pages or low light, move the book slightly closer and keep it flat. A tiny angle change can make OCR much cleaner.

📦 Requirements

  • 🤖
    Reachy MiniWireless version recommended, with camera + audio working.
  • 🧩
    SDK + dashboardreachy-mini version ≥ 1.2.13.
  • 🔊
    Hybrid TTSUses ElevenLabs when available, otherwise espeak-ng fallback.

🔐 Optional env vars

Set these if you want premium voice quality:

ELEVENLABS_API_KEY

If not set, the app automatically falls back to free TTS (so your demo still works).