{"id":264134,"date":"2026-06-04T12:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/04\/this-3d-printed-macintosh-replica-is-actually-a-voice-ai-assistant\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T12:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:55:14","slug":"this-3d-printed-macintosh-replica-is-actually-a-voice-ai-assistant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/04\/this-3d-printed-macintosh-replica-is-actually-a-voice-ai-assistant\/","title":{"rendered":"This 3D-Printed Macintosh Replica Is Actually a Voice AI Assistant"},"content":{"rendered":"

This 3D-Printed Macintosh Replica Is Actually a Voice AI Assistant<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.yankodesign.com\/2026\/06\/04\/this-3d-printed-macintosh-replica-is-actually-a-voice-ai-assistant\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-04 12:20:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.yankodesign.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Smart speakers have become some of the most visually forgettable objects in modern homes. A cylinder, a puck, a fabric-wrapped drum, placed wherever the Wi-Fi is strong and largely invisible once the novelty wears off. They do their jobs well enough, but none of them look like they belong in a collection or on a desk that someone cares about. The hardware has always been purely functional, and the design has always shown it.<\/p>\n

Alisher Ashimov approached the idea of a desk-based AI assistant from a completely different direction. Kira, his open-source project, takes its visual cues directly from the original 1984 Macintosh, a machine whose beige monolith silhouette is arguably the most iconic in personal computing history. The result is a voice-activated AI companion that looks more like a cherished collectible than a utility device.<\/p>\n

Designer: Alisher Ashimov<\/p>\n

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The enclosure is 3D printed in a single recommended filament color: Light Khaki matte PLA, the closest approximation of that distinctive Apple beige. Rounded top corners, a recessed front panel, horizontal side vents, and a decorative floppy-drive-style slot below the display all reproduce the original\u2019s proportions at pocket scale, somewhere around 80mm wide. A small four-color badge on the lower front panel adds the final recognizable touch.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Where the original Macintosh showed a desktop environment, Kira shows a face. The 1.5-inch OLED display renders two rectangular eyes and a small dash mouth, animating expressively in response to interaction. The wake word is \u201cHey, Kira,\u201d and from there, a built-in microphone picks up questions while a 4\u03a9, 3W speaker delivers spoken answers through the sculpted housing. It handles everyday voice queries the same way any smart assistant does, just with considerably more personality sitting on the shelf.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

The electronics are deliberately approachable. The core is a Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense, a capable and compact microcontroller…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This 3D-Printed Macintosh Replica Is Actually a Voice AI Assistant https:\/\/www.yankodesign.com\/2026\/06\/04\/this-3d-printed-macintosh-replica-is-actually-a-voice-ai-assistant\/ Publish Date: 2026-06-04 12:20:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":264135,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.yankodesign.com\/images\/design_news\/2026\/06\/this-3d-printed-macintosh-replica-is-actually-a-voice-ai-assistant\/kira-ai-assistant-01.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-264134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-macintosh","tag-macintosh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264136,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264134\/revisions\/264136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}