One Firmware at a Time Wasn't Enough: Building a Multi-Boot Launcher for My Kid's AI Toy
Last week I got a FoloToy AI Passport, an AI conversation toy driven by an ESP32. It has a plays marketplace with quite a few firmware toys[1]. A couple caught my eye: one turns the device into a walkie-talkie over Bluetooth, another uses BLE for a radar treasure hunt. Plenty of community work worth trying too. Lots of toys, but one awkward reality: the device runs only one firmware at a time. Switching from the walkie-talkie to the treasure hunt means opening a laptop, plugging in a cable, and reflashing the entire chip. Once you reflash, the previous toy is gone. Out in the park with my kid, one minute it’s the walkie-talkie; if the next minute calls for the radar game, too bad. That has to wait until we get home. ...