Cheatsheet

A dense quick reference distilled from Vols 1 to 7. Nothing new is introduced here. Each fact is marked C where a reachable primary or authoritative source states it, U where it rests on a single secondary or community source, and NF where no reachable source establishes it and the figure is left unclaimed.

8.1 At a glance

Table 1 — At a glance

Attribute	Value	Conf.
What	Palm-sized treaded desktop companion robot with a lift arm	C
Released	16 October 2016, United States	C
Launch price	USD 179.99	C
Maker	Anki; assets to Digital Dream Labs, December 2019	C
Successor	Vector, October 2018	C
Main MCU	NXP Kinetis K02, 100 MHz ARM Cortex-M4	C
RAM / flash	not established	NF
Wi-Fi	Espressif ESP8266EX — robot is the access point	C
Bluetooth	Nordic nRF51822 — to the Power Cubes	C
Camera delivered	320 x 240 greyscale	C
Camera sensor	reportedly 640 x 480, not exposed	U
Field of view	approximately 60 degrees, calibrated per unit	C
Display	128 x 64 IPS LCD; effective 128 x 32 when interleaved	C
Voice input	none — no microphone fitted	C
Motors	2 drive, head tilt, lift arm	C
Encoders	magnetic, on motor shafts, two lobes	C
Accessories	3 BLE Power Cubes, charging platform	C
Battery life	around 45 minutes	U
Mass / dimensions	not established — circulated figures describe the box	NF
Units sold	”hundreds of thousands” by August 2018	C, vendor claim

8.2 Network and protocol

Table 2 — Network and protocol

Item	Value
SSID pattern	Cozmo_XXXXXX, uppercase hexadecimal
Robot address	172.31.1.1
DHCP range	172.31.1.0/24, served by the robot
Transport	UDP, port 5551
Frame identifier	COZ\x03RE\x01
Reliability	selective-repeat ARQ over UDP
Keepalive	engine pings every 5 s; robot drops after 5 s silence
Pre-shared key	shown on the robot’s screen — place on platform, lift arm
Internet	none in the path; “no internet” warning is expected

8.3 Where the work happens

Table 3 — Where the work happens

On the robot	On the phone app (“the engine”)
Wi-Fi AP, BLE to cubes	face, pet and object detection
motor control, all sensors	face recognition, expression estimation
display, speaker, LEDs	the personality engine, behaviours
localisation, path tracking	animation, procedural faces, navigation
NV storage, OTA update	cube marker recognition, camera calibration

Rule of thumb: if it makes Cozmo feel alive, it runs on the phone.

8.4 Hardware versions

Table 4 — Hardware versions

Version	Period	Feature
4	Autumn 2016	no button
5	Autumn 2017	off button, EU certification
6	Autumn 2018	off button, Japan certification
7	Autumn 2019	on/off button

Backpack button reported supported from hardware 1.5 onward. Version is not determinable from a typical listing photograph.

8.5 The three control paths

Table 5 — The three control paths

Path	Needs app	Needs vendor	Latest	Last activity
Code Lab	yes	no	in-app	—
Official SDK (cozmo)	yes	no	1.4.10	12 Mar 2019
pycozmo	no	no	0.8.0	12 Nov 2020

pycozmo covers the robot half of the protocol well and the engine half — personality, animation, recognition — only as work in progress. It restores control, not character.

Unresolved: GitHub’s latest SDK tag is 1.4.10, while Digital Dream Labs’ hosted documentation is titled 1.4.12. Not reconciled.

8.6 Corporate chronology

Table 6 — Corporate chronology

Date	Event
2010	Anki founded, Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute
16 Oct 2016	Cozmo ships at USD 179.99
26 Jun 2017	Code Lab, built on Scratch Blocks
Apr 2019	Anki shuts down, about 200 laid off
Dec 2019	Digital Dream Labs acquires the assets
23 Nov 2020	Cozmo 2.0 pre-order, USD 197, delivery promised May 2021
2 Aug 2022	Cozmo 2.0 receives FCC approval
18 Sep 2024	Pennsylvania Attorney General sues DDL over ~14,000 prepaid orders

Outcome of the 2024 action: not established. Check directly.

None of the above stopped a Cozmo working.

8.7 Repositories and references

Table 7 — Repositories and references

Resource	Purpose
github.com/zayfod/pycozmo	independent MIT SDK; the protocol specification
pycozmo.readthedocs.io	protocol, functions, hardware versions
github.com/anki/cozmo-python-sdk	official SDK, requires the app in SDK mode
cozmosdk.anki.bot	DDL-hosted SDK documentation
github.com/touretzkyds/cozmopedia	community technical wiki; camera detail
anki.bot	the surviving vendor storefront and support articles

8.8 Buying checklist

Verify a compatible app installs and runs on a device you own — before buying the robot. Then: three cubes present and lighting; charging platform included; treads not perished; display free of dead regions; lift arm full travel; battery runtime demonstrated rather than claimed. No warranty, no repair channel, no parts supply.

8.9 Open items

Things this dive could not establish, listed so a future pass knows what to chase:

• the robot’s mass and dimensions — a scale and a ruler settle it
• battery chemistry, capacity and realistic runtime
• RAM and flash fitted to the Kinetis K02
• camera sensor and display controller part numbers
• whether Cozmo 2.0’s internals are genuinely distinct — one teardown would settle it
• the outcome of the September 2024 Pennsylvania action
• the contents of ankibots.wiki, unreachable throughout this research
• current app-store status on both platforms, which changes

8.10 Hub contrast, one row

Table 8 — Hub contrast, one row

	Cozmo (2016)	Vector (2018)
Kept alive by	its own architecture — the engine was always the owner’s phone	an open community server, wire-pod, replacing a dead cloud

The fuller cross-robot matrix is in _shared/comparison.md.

Sources

This cheatsheet introduces no new claims; every row traces to Vols 1 to 7 and through them to the sources cited there. Principal anchors: pycozmo and its protocol documentation; the anki/cozmo-python-sdk repository; the microcontrollertips teardown; iFixit; the touretzkyds cozmopedia wiki; Wikipedia’s “Cozmo” and “Anki (American company)” articles; Digital Dream Labs’ support and product pages at anki.bot; and CBS News Pittsburgh for the 2024 Pennsylvania action.