I Created an AI Tamagotchi Ahead of Meta

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has made AI irresistibly adorable with its new Muse Charm, designed to let you carry your cheerful AI companion around like a modern-day Tamagotchi. However, I’m opting out of the purchase because I already have my own version of the Muse Charm at home. It set me back just $50, and I believe the learning experience was worth every penny.

My version may not come with cameras or 5G connectivity, but it communicates with Muse and features cute avatars! It also serves as a pocket watch and a remote camera viewfinder, and it has the potential to control my smart home—if you’re willing to dive into some extra coding.

A few weeks ago, I snagged a 1.75-inch touchscreen computer pendant, the Waveshare ESP32-S3 1.75C, shipped directly from China. This push-to-talk AI development kit closely resembles the Muse Charm and is officially endorsed by Meta. It’s one of the first recommendations for anyone looking to create a “Muse Gadget,” utilizing Meta’s open-source code and tokens to connect directly to its Muse AI cloud.

When the sleek silver pocket watch arrived, it felt a bit underwhelming at first. Setting it up was straightforward—I plugged it into my PC, directed Claude to Meta’s GitHub, and paired it with the Muse app on my phone. However, even after inputting Meta’s keys, Muse initially mistook my commands for audio clips to transcribe. Once I sorted that out, Muse’s responses were still sluggish, and it didn’t vocalize its answers. The limited screen display made it tough to follow along, as I often had to pull out my phone to read full messages.

The device only came with a single Jolly avatar that mostly just sat there looking cute, and it lacked the automatic smart home discovery features that devices like Amazon Echo or Google Home offer. After the initial setup, it didn’t seem to do much. While Meta’s software engineers provided a sample app to stream video from your phone camera, the absence of a remote shutter button rendered it less useful for photography.

But after a few sessions with Claude Code, I managed to fill in most of those gaps. I simply plugged the Waveshare back into my PC and asked Claude to reprogram the features I wanted.

When I expressed my frustration to Claude about not being able to read or hear Muse’s replies clearly—issues others have also noted—Claude created a conversation history page for me to swipe through and read what Muse had said. I also integrated a British AI voice from ElevenLabs to vocalize the responses. While the voice didn’t quite match the cute vibe of the Muse avatars, it was the most pleasant option available in ElevenLabs’ free tier.

Thanks to Claude, I can now take pictures from across the room with a high-quality live preview, and my phone’s front-facing camera no longer displays upside down. Claude also made it easy to add a low-quality camera preview over Bluetooth, allowing me to capture creative angles without needing to be on my home Wi-Fi.

I asked Claude to create a variety of avatars similar to those showcased during Meta Connect and to incorporate a Tamagotchi-like minigame where the avatars need food, playtime, sleep, and baths. When the game felt too simplistic, I had Claude add different levels of hunger, boredom, and dirtiness. I decided that treats should create a mess and make the avatars dirtier when consumed, and too much playtime should tire them out. Claude executed my requests seamlessly.

When I realized I was accidentally releasing the push-to-talk button too soon, causing Muse to choke on incomplete audio, vibe coding quickly resolved it by ensuring only audio clips of one second in length were sent. The only noticeable lag now comes from Meta’s servers, which can be hit or miss in terms of responsiveness.

Reprogramming the pendant was so straightforward that I even asked Claude to add a few features specifically for this video, including a functional pocket watch face with three hands that accurately tells the time. It took just 15 minutes, and now when I say it looks like a pocket watch, you can see why! Claude even found, downloaded, trimmed, and loaded video clips of Zuckerberg introducing the Muse Charm, along with a video player to watch those clips on the Waveshare.

I want to clarify that I have no coding experience, so I can’t speak to the quality of the code I’ve implemented. It could be riddled with flaws. I also don’t fully trust Meta or its Muse agent with my email or home network, especially after hearing about a reviewer’s home address being leaked. I’ve kept it on guest Wi-Fi as a precaution.

This means I can’t really gauge how useful a Muse Charm might be for those who are more tech-savvy and willing to take a leap of faith. However, after nearly dropping my little silver pendant a couple of times—one that offers no more Muse functionality than my phone (and significantly less without additional coding)—I’m starting to think that Muse itself isn’t the main reason to invest in a dedicated computing pocket watch.

The real advantage of having dedicated hardware is the ability to do things that your phone can’t, like fully customizing the gadget to suit your needs. This raises the question: Will the actual Muse Charm be as freely programmable, or would potential buyers be better off with a development kit? Only time will tell when it finally launches.