English | 中文

OpenToys

Open-source local voice AI for toys, devices, and robots, powered by your Mac

OpenToys is the local-first platform version of ElatoAI. No cloud required, no subscription lock-in, and your data stays private on-device with inference running locally with a websocket transport to connect to your ESP32-S3.

Apple Silicon · Rust + React · ESP32-S3 · Whisper ASR · Qwen3-TTS · MLX LLMs

The New Wild West of AI Kids Toys
Read the WIRED article →

AI kids' toys roundup
Read the ArsTechnica article →

The Easy Way to Build Interactive AI Toys for Your Kids
Read the Hackster article →

• 2026-03-14: OpenToys launched🎉 And it's Pi Day! If you're looking to run realtime AI models like OpenAI Realtime, Gemini, Eleven Labs and more on your ESP32 device, check it out here.

• Fully Local: NO cloud, NO subscriptions, NO data leaving your home, FREE AI forever.
• Multilingual: OpenToys supports multiple languages and accents: English 🇺🇸/🇬🇧, Chinese 🇨🇳, Spanish 🇪🇸, French 🇫🇷, Japanese 🇯🇵, Korean 🇰🇷, Portuguese 🇵🇹, German 🇩🇪, Italian 🇮🇹 and more!
• Voice Cloning: Clone your own voice or your favorite characters with <10s of audio.
• Customizable: Build your own toys, companions, robots and more with an ESP32.
• Open-source: The community is open-source and free to use and contribute to.

Firmware Docs ⏭️

• Direct DMG: OpenToys_0.1.0_aarch64.dmg
• All releases: GitHub Releases

1. Clone the repository with git clone https://github.com/akdeb/open-toys.git
2. Install Rust and Tauri with curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
3. Install Node from here
4. Run cd app
5. Run npm install
6. Run npm run tauri dev

Create experiences with personalities that can play games, tell stories, engage in educational conversations. Here are some of the default characters with more prompt details in personalities.json.

• STT: Whisper Turbo ASR
• TTS: Qwen3-TTS and Chatterbox-turbo
• LLMs: any LLM from mlx-community (Qwen3, Llama, Mistral3, etc.)
• App: Tauri, React, Tailwind CSS, TypeScript, Rust
• Platform focus: Apple Silicon (M1/2/3/4/5)
• Hardware device: ESP32-S3

1. Connect your ESP32-S3 to your Apple Silicon Mac.
2. In OpenToys, go to Settings and click Flash Firmware.
3. OpenToys flashes bundled firmware images (bootloader, partitions, firmware) directly.
4. After flashing, the toy opens a WiFi captive portal (ELATO) for network setup.
5. Put your Mac and toy on the same WiFi network; the toy reconnects when powered on while OpenToys is running.

AI systems (local or cloud) are not perfect. This project is built with data privacy and safety in mind, but there are still important limitations:

• Hallucinations: LLM and TTS models can give incorrect or misleading answers. This should not be treated as a source of truth.
• Inappropriate outputs: Adversarial or ambiguous prompts can sometimes produce unsafe responses.
• Emotional impact: AI should not replace real human interaction, especially for children.

When using with children, use with parental awareness and treat this as a tool for exploration, not authority.

1. M1 Pro 2021 Macbook Pro
2. M3 2024 Macbook Air
3. M4 Pro 2024 Macbook Pro

open-toys/
├── app/
├── arduino/
├── resources/
├────────── python-backend/
├────────── firmware/
└── README.md

Python 3.11 runtime binary, packages and HF models are downloaded on first app setup into the app data directory.

MIT

If you like this project, consider supporting us with a star ⭐️ on GitHub!