Luca Di Lorenzo (@LucaDilo on YouTube) recently worked with us on what was meant to be a simple robot assistant, but soon became something much more fun: a tiny, expressive desktop companion that notices you, listens to you, and talks back. Based on the Arduino UNO Q board, Nuvi is designed to run everything it needs on-device, no internet required for the core experience.
We think it’s the cutest, but maybe our team is partial to the project because the whole Arduino office in Turin, Italy loves its real-life inspiration: Kaito, the Shiba Inu our colleague Assunto sometimes brings to work.
Di Lorenzo says Nuvi’s first design worked but felt like a machine. With Kaito as a reference, he was able to find the inspiration to build something we would all actually want on our desk.
Talk to it and control your smart home
Nuvi is under 30 cm tall (approximately 12 inches) and packs a surprising amount into that compact form. It is built to wake up when you approach, responds when called by name, and holds a conversation powered by Gemini – which handles both understanding speech and generating replies in a single step, with no separate speech-to-text layer. For speaking without the cloud, Nuvi uses Piper, a voice engine running entirely on the board, so responses feel immediate. It can search the web when needed, toggle smart home devices by voice or a hand gesture, and read out room temperature and humidity when you flash it an open palm.
Beyond conversation, Nuvi has animated eyes that express different moods, moving ears and arms, head pan and tilt, touch reactions on its head and belly, and — just for fun — a dance.
How UNO Q makes this possible
Nuvi runs on UNO Q, and the board’s dual-brain architecture is exactly what a project like this one needed. The real-time microcontroller side is designed to handle all the physical control: four servos for the arms and ears, two serial servos for the neck, the display, sensors, and touch inputs. Meanwhile, the Linux side is built to run the AI pipeline, the voice engine, and the application logic. Everything lives on the board itself, not on a connected PC. Two jobs, one board, no compromises.
Build your own desk companion!
Di Lorenzo shares everything you need right here on Arduino Project Hub: 3D files, electronics, code, and a full step-by-step tutorial. If you’ve been looking for a project that shows just how much personality you can pack into a UNO Q build, this is it. Of course, feel free to customize it to resemble your favorite pet!
UNO Q is available on the Arduino Store, and can be ordered from DigiKey, Farnell, Mouser, Newark, RS Components, Robu.in, and other authorized distributors and resellers worldwide.
Arduino,UNO, and the Arduino logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Arduino S.r.l.
