Google Home speaker is a small-cone like voice controlled personal assistant that can do all kinds of cool things like describe the weather, play music and control your smart home devices. A unit priced at $130 begs the question – should you buy it? Turns out, Google is also producing a Google Home speaker alternative at a pocket-friendly price.
The Google Artificial Intelligence Yourself (AIY) Projects Kit will enable Raspberry Pi enthusiasts to build their own version of Google Home. The Google Assistant kit comes bundles with the latest issue of MagPi, the official Raspberry Pi magazine.
Google Home speaker is a small-cone like voice controlled personal assistant that can do all kinds of cool things like describe the weather, play music and control your smart home devices.
Open-Source Hardware Dev Kits
Google AIY Projects Kit for the voice assistant comes with all the hardware you require to add voice capabilities to a Raspberry Pi – including a cardboard case. It includes Google Voice Hardware Attached on Top (HAT) accessory board, an arcade-style push arcade button, a stereo microphone board, and access to Google’s Assistant SDK and Cloud Speech API.
“The folks at Google, along with us at The MagPi, are really excited to see what projects you can create (or enhance) with this kit, whether you’re creating a voice-controlled robot or a voice interface that answers all your questions,” said Rob Zwetsloot, features editor on The MagPi.
With more than 10 million Raspberry Pi’s sold, it’s easy to see why Google choose to partner with the company. Major tech companies are keen to tap into the Pi’s popularity.
Virtual assistants can run on the Raspberry Pi. The latest Windows 10 Creators Update c with additional support for the virtual assistant Cortana to the simplified version of Windows run by the Raspberry Pi. Similarly, Amazon offers an extended guide on how to turn the Pi into a voice-controlled assistant. It’s an inexpensive alternative to the $180 Amazon Echo smart speaker.
Google AIY Projects Kit for the voice assistant comes with all the hardware you require to add voice capabilities to a Raspberry Pi – including a cardboard case.
A few days ago, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced it has shipped 250,000 Pi Zero W devices, and added more than a dozen distributors for the dollar ten boards.
Google Home offers a slew of features, including (among others):
Alarm
Asking for weather forecasts
Calendar
Calculator
Dictionary
Flight Information
Local area guides
Live sporting updates
Language translation
Music control
TV control
The only downside is to the Google AIY Projects Kit is that the tech magazine seems to have already sold out. You can actually download a PDF of the magazine for free, however, the PDF version won’t come with the free Google Assistant hardware kit.
