AI agents are great. Problem is, everything they do gets passed on to an online layer, so none of the work they do on your PC is ever really confidential. It also runs the agent locally, which takes up a whole lot of resources and could create problems for users running agents on an older machine. The BVIO Violoop offers a fix by offloading the AI agent processing to a local AI computer, allowing you bypass the cloud and leave your PC’s resources for carrying out non-AI tasks.
It’s, basically, a mini-PC with its own display, similar to what a miniature all-in-one PC will probably look like. Except, it’s not designed to work on its own. Instead, it plugs into your computer, which allows it to monitor what you’re doing and control different processes on your machine, similar to what an locally-running AI agent will do, albeit without using up your PC’s resources.
The BVIO Violoop is a plug-in AI computer that connects to your PC. It requires two connections: a video output and a data port. If your PC has a display-capable USB-C port, you can plug it into that for a single-connection setup. If not, you can hook it up to an HDMI slot and a USB port. Basically, it uses the display connection to understand what’s happening on your screen, while the data connection allows it to launch apps, run scripts, control your peripherals, and, pretty much, work autonomously on your computer. Since everything runs on the machine itself, there’s no API, no special scripts, and no complex setup is necessary.
According to the outfit, it can process the contents of your screen and store long-context memory right on the device, so all information about your projects, habits, and preferences stay offline. This should also help you save tokens when using cloud-based AI services, since it takes those things out of the equation. When properly hooked up to a PC, by the way, it controls your computer by taking over the mouse and keyboard, allowing it to access any app without needing to work with an API layer. It even lets you monitor what it’s doing from your phone via a companion app, so you can verify that the AI isn’t setting up Skynet while you’re away.
The BVIO Violoop has a locally-stored 8-billion parameter AI model preloaded, which runs on its own AI processor, so the AI processing is fully kept out of your PC. There’s also an STM32H563 security chip, which, the outfit claims, enforces physical authorization for sensitive actions. How do you approve those sensitive actions? Well, there’s a giant button on top, which it will require you to press before it proceeds to do something the security chip considers an unsafe action, such as deleting items off a local database or updating an important file. And yes, you can connect it to any online AI service, such as Claude or ChatGPT, for processing tasks that may be too advanced for the 8-billion parameter local AI model to handle. The device’s display, basically, is there to inform you what the AI is doing at any point in time.
A Kickstarter campaign is currently running for the BVIO Violoop. You can reserve a unit for pledges starting at $399.
