A $50 Waveshare devkit stands in for Meta's Muse Charm

Meta has positioned its Muse Charm as a cute, carryable AI companion, and its open-source code and tokens let outsiders build 'Muse Gadget' devices. The Verge's experiment tests what that openness actually delivers: the sanctioned Waveshare devkit paired easily with Meta's GitHub and the Muse phone app, but Meta's own build still misread commands, answered slowly, and showed only a few words onscreen.

The gap was closed not by Meta but by Claude Code, which added a readable conversation history, an ElevenLabs voice, a remote camera viewfinder, and a layered Tamagotchi-style pet game. Hollister is candid that he cannot judge the code's quality, and he kept the pendant on guest Wi-Fi after hearing how Meta's Muse agent leaked one reviewer's home address.

That leaves an open question about the retail Muse Charm: if the fun comes from reprogramming the hardware, buyers who want a finished product may be disappointed, while tinkerers might prefer a devkit. Hollister notes the real Charm had not shipped at the time of writing.