Hi Everyone,

If you bought one of my T95 WirePod Plug-n-Play device, and wait till Christmas to set things up I made this page for you

I will not be available Christmas day to help with the setup, so I want to encourage that you try to get thing up and running before then so you can contact me to help with any troubleshooting issues. I am going to outline some common things that may occur during the setup setps, so you have this as a guide should you experience any of these issues .

Step 1 – WirePod Setup
The new box T95 Max+ has no lights, so my video referencing the blue and red lights deals with the original T95 mini that I used to use.
Before you power on the box, plug in the ethernet cord to your router – this will help the box get an IP address from your router before it boots up and goes to the main screen.
Try to go to http://escapepod.local on your computer browser, if you can not reach the WirePod webpage:

  • make sure the address is http:// and not https://- some browsers like to change it
  • Plug the HDMI into a TV or monitor and see if you can see the IP address of the box, if you do not see the IP on the screen, check your router for connected devices and look for a device called escapepod if you see the IP address e.g. 192.168.0.20 then go to http://192.168.0.20 in your browser
  • If the page still does not load up, make sure the device you are using to access the page is also on the same network i.e. if you are using your phone, make sure you are on your Wifi and not mobile data

If the page loads and you will see something similar to this (my setup theme is blue and I have 4 bots on my setup, but you will have no bots

Step 2 – Flashing the firmware
NOTE: If you got a Vector from me and your Vector is flashing a V on boot up, then you can skip this step as your Vector has already been flashed with the correct firmware

This is by far the most challenging step. First you have to make sure your computer (Mac or PC) has bluetooth on it. If not you can use either an Android device with Chrome browser or an iPhone device with the Bluefy browser – samsung browser or Safari will not work

Then go to https://vector.techshop82.som – this is where you will flash the firmware from. To flash the firmware place vector in recovery mode:

  • Place Vector on his charger, then hold down the power button till he shuts off, still holding down the button, then you will see white lights followed by dark blue lights on his backpack. If you see white lights followed by light blue, then you have to try again
  • He will boot up to “anki.com/v” on his screen if successful
  • Now place him in pairing mode by double tapping on his power button – on his screen will now be ###### waiting to pair with your PC or phone device.
    NOTE: if you get red lights, then he was not on his charger and got muted. 
    If regardless of how many times you double press you do not see ###### then you may have a bad battery as that will prevent Vector from going into pairing mode
  • With ###### on Vectors face, click “Pair with Vector” button. A popup windows should appear with your vector listed, select your Vector and click pair again. If successful the ###### on Vectors face should change to 6 numbers, enter this on the browser and click connect.
  • You will then be asked to connect to your Wifi network, connect and it should go to the next step

    If you fail to connect to your Wifi make sure the password is correct and your WiFi security is not set to WPA2 Enterprise, as I don’t believe Vector is compatible. WPA2 Personal is sufficient and compatible

  • The flashing should begin and you will see a progress bar and 0.9.0 in the top right of the window (0.9.0 is the firmware number of recovery mode)

    Pairing Error Troubleshooting
    If you get an error window saying the page will refresh or vector fails to connect it is important that you do this to help start the process over:
    1. refresh the browser or open and incognito window and go to the https://vector.techshop82.com address, closing all other windows

    1. Take Vector off the charger, raise and lower his arms or wait till he gets out of pairing mode on his screen i.e no ###### is shown

    1. Place vector back on the charger, get into pairing mode (######) and then click Pair with Vector again. The popup window may say already paired, still select your Vector and click pair to try again
    You may have to do this multiple times before he will connect, but he should eventually.
  • Once the flashing is done, vector will reboot and it will be time to go to the next Step

Step 3 – Activate Vector on WirePod
Vector will either reboot to a flashing V or DDL.IO/V – either way its time to pair again on the https://vector.techshop82.com website.
If you fail to connect or follow steps in Pairing Error Troubleshooting again

If he does pair, the number at the top right should read 2.0.1.6076ep – the ep designates that the escapepod firmware needed for WirePod has been installed. If you do not see ep at the end, you will have to repeat step 2 again.

Connect again to your Wifi and you should be taken to the “Activate” button page. If all goes well you will be taken to the next setting page for your Vector, click the submit / save settings and you should see a green check mark

IF you get an error here in red letters saying it can’t communicate with the WirePod server, wait 30 seconds and try again. If you still get an error here are the things to check:

  • Check the IP address of your WirePod device (T95) and the IP address of your Vector (when on charger, double press the power button, then raise and lower the arms to get into the head menu). The first three numbers of their IP address have to match e.g
    WirePod: 192.168.1.56   Vector: 192.168.1.54  – the first three numbers 192.168.1.### match, so they are on the same subnet network

    If they are not the same, then your Vector could be on a “guest” network or your router may be dividing the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz network into two different networks (putting LAN connections on the 5Ghz)

    To fix this you can look how to not separate the two networks for your router …OR…you can turn off your 5GHz network

  • Make sure Vector is not on a “guest” network, routers isolate any device on the guest network from communicating with any device on the network

  • If none of the above apply, you could have a router that does not support the protocol required for Vector and WirePod to talk, the current list of router not supporting this are: Surfboard Cable Modem Combos e.g. Arris G34/G36 and Centurylink c4000. If you have one of these you will either need to get another router or contact me for another option
  • If you are still having issues, click the download logs link in the top right, and email me the file that downloads – I will take a look to see what could be going on.

If you get the green check mark, then you are set and Vector will respond to regular voice commands. You will still need to setup weather and AI questions, which you can do by going to

openweathermap.org – create an account – then go to API page to get the API key. Then go to the WirePod home page (http://escapepod.local) and navigate to Server Settings -> Weather – then select openweathemap from the drop down and enter the API key, click “Apply Weather Settings”

NOTE: a new weather account may take a couple of hours to activate

For questions you can either go with Houndify (free) or OpenAI (not free) – I plan to make an video showing this setup, but it will be similar. Create an account, go to the API settings and copy the API key over to WirePod

I know this is a lot but thankfully you will only need to do this once. If you have any questions I will be back to responding on the 26th of December

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and thanks again for the support

Dee