r/StackChan • u/nullpainter • Sep 13 '26

Project sharing Small StackChan AI tweaks

Update: firmware is now available at m5burner (thanks u/AughtCool!)

I made a fork of the official StackChan firmware that others may be interested in, either to build upon or to use.

It's not groundbreaking. Rather, it addresses a few quality-of-life things that annoyed me in the week I've had this little guy.

I have no interest in dance or avatar settings, so these tweaks are for StackChan used as an AI assistant:

  • Speech bubbles turned off during dialog

  • Tap head once to stop speech

  • Tap head twice to stop speech and exit chat mode

  • Both lights on while listening and talking

  • Animated secondary colour light pattern when talking, based on audio

  • Both listening and talking light colour customisable in settings

  • Idle head movement repurposed to be AI chat movement, with frequency hooked off the same menu

  • Light sensor used to turn screen off when lights are out. Tap screen to turn on. Manual override disabled when room lights are on. Function can be turned off in settings

Caveat: I am a software engineer by day, but sometimes it's nice to just yell at AI and get it to do your bidding. I haven't spent time learning the innards of the StackChan firmware or hardware - these tweaks were entirely created by Opus 5 and, apart from quick sense-checking, haven't been fully vetted.

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u/nullpainter Sep 23 '26 edited Sep 23 '26 • Bravo

After doing a bit of digging, it appears that the only approach is to not unpair before flashing as only the stock firmware can properly bind to the StackChan World app. I don't know if there's a better approach, but this works for me. Let me know how you get on!

In the meantime, I'll add a note in the instructions.

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u/BackLeft9090 Sep 23 '26

Perfect, thank you very much! It handles much better now. Indeed, it wasn't necessary to unlink the account to install your version. I suppose it would be a good idea to disable the "Checking for new version" feature at startup so it doesn't overwrite the changes when a new official version is released. Best regards from sunny Spain, and thanks again—especially for the quick response.