Hildegard: Personal Space Protector

This is Hildegard: A delightfully grumpy-looking AI camera companion that anyone can build. Custom-trained to spot the things that infuriate you.

She uses a covert camera placed on your network to protect your personal space.

And she watches for one very specific threat:

The dreaded workplace stop-and-chat.

You know the one.

An approaching coworker… carrying a cup of tea.

Hildegard spots the danger instantly:

Threat detected.
Conversation imminent.

Take fake phone call

Crisis averted.

Origin Story

This is a reboot of one of our most popular projects ‘Peeper Pam’ - but refined, rebuilt, and improved.

The original AI camera monitor was featured in magazines, and we were ever so proud of it.

If you fancy a deeper dive into how Peeper Pam worked, here’s the original video.

Hildegard has a better enclosure, a more expressive and informative light system - and thanks to Raspberry Pi’s new AI HAT + 2, she’s significantly faster.

Which means Hildegard is now even more vigilant than Pam.

Side note: the design was inspired by something we spotted on Austrian trams -

a sticker reminding passengers to give up their seat for cool-looking old ladies.

Hildegard has that same energy.

Firm. Unapologetic. Mildly intimidating.

The moment someone with a mug approaches your space,

Hildegard lets you know:

Your territory 👏 is about to👏 be invaded.

Welcome to the age of the antisocial desk guardian.

What a time to be alive.

We’ve open-sourced the entire project on GitHub - completely free - so you can build your own version.
One that keeps an eye out for the things that infuriate YOU.

Video

Credits: 

We based the stl file for the enclosure on the design by Georg Mierau