Peregrine is the voice assistant that lives in your rig and answers with no cell signal. Until now it ran on one board. Now there is a second choice, the ZimaBoard 2. It costs more and it uses more power. In return, its answers get dramatically smarter.
The ceiling we kept hitting
Peregrine's answers come from a language model, the part that reads your question and writes the reply. Models come in sizes, measured in billions of parameters. Think of those as the connections in its brain. More connections, better reasoning.
The Radxa Dragon Q6A, Peregrine's original board, tops out at a 1 billion size model. Back in June we tried to fit the 3 billion version on it, and the board refused to load it. So when IceWhale, the company behind the ZimaBoard, asked whether we had a project for their board, we had one ready. Could a small computer running off a camper battery carry the bigger brain?
What three times the brain buys you
It can. The ZimaBoard runs the 3 billion version of the same model, three times the size. Meta, the company that makes the model, publishes test scores for both sizes. Here is what they mean in plain terms, each scored out of 100.
- Everyday math problems: 44 on the Dragon, 78 on the ZimaBoard. The questions you actually ask at camp. Will this tank of fuel get us there? How many days will our water last?
- Doing exactly what you asked: 60 against 77. Ask for three things, one sentence each, and you are far more likely to get three things, one sentence each.
- Turning what you said into the right action: 26 against 67. More than double. This is the skill that matters most for an assistant that helps run your rig.
- How much of the conversation it remembers: about 750 words against about 6,000. Eight times as much. Tell it you are camping at 9,000 feet, ask about dinner a few questions later, and it still plans around the altitude.
On the bench, the gap was easy to hear. We told both boards we leave camp at four, the hike back takes three hours, and sunset is at six thirty, then asked if we would make it back before dark. The ZimaBoard worked out that we would get back around seven, after the sun had set. The Dragon said we would likely make it, because the sun sets at six. It had not even held on to the sunset time we gave it.
The fuel question and the frozen hose question are in the video. The small model's answer to the hose one is worth the click on its own.
Still quick, and the lights still come first
A bigger brain could have meant a slower one. It is not, by much. Answers come out at about the same pace on both boards, and once it is warmed up, the first word comes back in under a second. Simple commands like turning on the lights never go to the model at all, so they are instant on either board. On the ZimaBoard they even cut in line. Say the command while it is in the middle of a long answer and the lights come on first.
The original plan was to let the board's built-in graphics chip do the heavy lifting. Why that fell apart, and what we did instead, is in the video.
What premium costs you
Here is the honest part. The ZimaBoard 2 is $339 for the board alone, against the $139 we paid for the Dragon plus a small drive. The ZimaBoard needs nothing else, because Peregrine and the model fit on its built-in storage.
It also draws more power. Sitting idle it pulls about 4.5 watts, against about 2.5 for the Dragon. While it is answering, it jumps to around 20 watts for a few seconds, against 6 to 8. In camper terms, idling all day costs you roughly 8 amp hours from your battery instead of about 4.5. On a 100 amp hour bank with some solar, that is easy to live with. On a really small bank, the Dragon is still the better pick.
And it is still a small model. Ask it how far Denver is from Moab and you will get a confident, wrong number. That is why anything Peregrine has to get right, like your battery level, comes from TrailCurrent's own sensors and not the model's memory.
Which one is right for your rig
- Radxa Dragon Q6A, the budget option. Lowest cost and lowest power. Fine for small talk and quick questions, and the one to choose for a small battery bank.
- ZimaBoard 2, the premium option. Much smarter answers, far better at math and planning, and it remembers much more of the conversation. You pay for it in dollars and in watts.
Both run the same Peregrine, answer to the same wake word and control the same TrailCurrent devices. Nothing else in your rig changes.
Get the board, get the code
If the premium option fits your rig, here is the ZimaBoard 2 at the Zimaspace shop. Get the 8 GB model. That link carries our affiliate tag. It costs you nothing extra and sends a small cut back to the project.
Everything Peregrine needs to run on it is free and MIT licensed in the Peregrine repository on GitHub, including the installer. Build it once, write it to a USB stick, and boot the board from it. What would you ask a smarter Peregrine first? Tell us in the video comments.