Mac

Apple Mac for Robotics

Hardware

For the Mac Mini, add a 12V input directly to the power rail. You can figure this out yourself, or, find instructions on YouTube.

Apple Remote Desktop (ARD)

Apple Remote Desktop is a good solution for developing, except that the audio is automatically routed to your development computer when you connect, which then prevents you from remotely debugging on-robot audio hardware issues.

Solution 1 Stop ARD completely, connect via SSH, and in system_hw_test, run:

uv run test_audio_mac.py

Solution 2 Stop ARD completely, connect via SSH, and run:

osascript -e 'set volume without output muted'
osascript -e 'set volume output volume 20' # adjust int to whatever value you want

Solution 3 The Mac might automatically unmute the default audio device once the ARD session is terminated.

FileVault / Auto Connect to Wifi

FileVault blocks auto connect to WiFi, making it impossible to remote connect to your Mac after it boots (unless you have a screen/keyboard connected to it), which sadly defeats the entire purpose of ARD.

Solution Turn off FileVault, or, do not provide AppleID credentials, in which case FileVault will be off by default.