If, at any point, a Pokédex was on your wishlist, you’re not alone. The iconic device used to identify every Pokémon went down in history as one of the coolest gadgets, and it’s no wonder that fans still dream of having one. Nearly three years on, a YouTuber has made that a reality — well, sort of.
Engineering hobbyist Abe’s Projects, whose real name is Abe Haskins, chronicled their quest (Haskins identifies as non-binary) to become the very best at building a real, functional Pokédex in a video. In it, they detailed the challenges in designing, 3D printing, and programming the device, which sets out to achieve three goals: to look similar to its anime counterpart, be able to recognise Pokémon in most situations, and have a robotic voice like in the show.
To make it work, Haskins ran ChatGPT-4 to analyse what the replica was looking at and check it against the Pokémon API, the database of Pokémon information. The AI voice generator tool PlayHT was then used to clone the voice of Nick Stellate, who lent his voice to the Pokédex in the anime from 1997 to 1998, from a video clip.
The final product isn’t perfect — it can identify action figures and online images; not so much Pokémon plushies — but it’s still pretty darn impressive. In fact, the homemade invention has won over many fans, with many praising the YouTuber’s efforts in the comments.
“Please let this live up to the hype,” typed one user, ‘Edit: Lives up to the hype.” Another wrote, “That was incredible! Even if the end result had bugs in it, the fact that it actually works when everything is just right means that it can only improve from there :D”.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
Trinity Sun
