The GAN Robot and non-smart cubes
long post, skip to tldr; below if you prefer
I wanted to share some info about using the GAN Robot with their non-smart cubes because I’ve read a lot of speculation in various forums and hope this will help someone.
I have the GAN v2 Robot, the GAN Robot set of centre caps, and several GAN and other brand cubes. First, let’s state the perhaps-not-so-obvious: GAN’s Robot is not compatible with non-GAN cubes.
GAN’s smart cubes
The Robot is fully compatible with a selection of GAN smart cubes (I have the iCarry v2 but GAN’s website lists the others.
Fully compatible means: using GAN’s Cubestation app, the Robot, and the smart cube – the Robot can scramble, solve, and put the cubes into various states to enable repetitive practice of those stages.
GAN’s non-smart cubes
The Robot is also partly (for want of a better word) compatible with cubes that can fit the Robot caps.
What works
The only non-smart cubes that fit that I can test have been 356 X v1 and 356 XS.
What doesn’t work
Non-smart cubes that definitely can’t accept the Robit caps are: 356 Air UM, 356 Air SM (2017), 11 Air and the 11 M range.
Partly compatible
means that Cubestation will let the Robot try to scramble a cube (seems to be a random scramble from the set of scrambles, not one you can choose). As the Robot has no feedback from a non-smart cube it’s scrambling blind. If you put the cube in the wrong way it will not be how the scramble should have been. But since you don’t know what scramble you should have got you can’t really tell, and the scramble looks legit.
Using cstimer and the GAN X Scrambler extension
How do I know this if the scramble is random and not shown? Because you can also connect the Robot to cstimer and use the GAN X scrambler extension (Chrome/Edge). Here you can see the scramble and if you put the cube in incorrectly it will be different. However, you can work it out with trial and error, and then use that info in Cubestation. But unless you want a mobile experience then using PC cstimer and GAN scrambler is better as you will know which scrambles you were supposed to get AND you can scramble to a certain stage for practising (if you remember from above this isn’t possible in Cubestation with a non-smart cube.
To try
What I’m going to try at some point is to connect a smart cube and a robot (with a non-smart cube in it) to cubestation so the app is fooled into releasing the specific scramble options. Might not work since cubestation will ‘see’ that the smart cube is not being turned but it’s worth a try.
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Something else I’d like to investigate is if compatible 3D printed centre caps for other, unsupported cubes can be a thing.
In summary, or tldr;
- I’ve only found 2 non-smart cubes that are partly compatible with the GAN robot, 356 X v1 and 356 XS
- compatible in Cubestation means the cube can be randomly scrambled
- compatible in cstimer with GAN X scrambler extension means specific scrambles are possible, and also scramble to a specific stage for practicing that stage
All this might be moot since only the 356 XS is still available for sale and who knows for how much longer.
Let me know in the comments if I’ve missed anything or you have something else to add.
Note: I’ll be updating this post with relevant links as soon as time allows
