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This may bring me one step closer to my personal "holy grail" of home automation: every room in the house[1] working with seamless voice-activated home automati

This may bring me one step closer to my personal "holy grail" of home automation: every room in the house[1] working with seamless voice-activated home automation. This is what I'm ultimately after: - A cheap device (DIY if possible) in the form factor of a small plug-in unit. Ideally the device itself should be practically "invisible" in each room, and won't require any special home wiring. This is definitely in the realm of possibility for a Raspberry Pi (or similar). - A microphone for the device that works at least as well as the Echo's far-field mic. I have not been able to find any good options for this, apart from some obscure parts that are too expensive for me to test, let alone buy for every room. - Software that allows for voice-activated operation. There's probably a suitable workaround for doing this with the Alexa Voice Service now, though it may require more CPU power than is available on the Raspberry Pi. - Ideally, I could host the voice service myself and wouldn't have to worry about the privacy implications of going through someone like Amazon. I know there are several existing software packages that claim to do this, but none that I've found can match the quality of Echo/Alexa for everyday interaction. - Audio feedback does not need to be high quality, but at least audible. A small speaker within the device is probably enough. For other areas of the house, it would be nice for the output to be connected to a bluetooth speaker in the room or a home audio system (if available). The Echo Dot appears to be a pretty close match for this (though I haven't tried it) - at least in terms of functionality, but the form factor still seems a bit off. I'd rather have a self-contained plug-in unit than something that sits on a desk or table. [1] Or most of the house anyway

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
Yeah, if anyone found something equivalent to the Echo in mic tech that I can hook up to my own setup, I'd die to know. That's the one thing I can't really replicate on my own system.
Swizec 11y ago
> is may bring me one step closer to my personal "holy grail" of home automation: every room in the house[1] working with seamless voice-activated home automation. But why? What do you want to automate? That's the part I never understood about this stuff. What is there to automate in the first place?
- faitswulff 11y ago
  Yeah, and what about the endless false positives in every room of the house?
  - hirsin 11y ago
    It's pretty hard to order something via Alexa - I know, my friends have tried to order me several things ranging from sex toys to more Echos. Never worked. Please don't spread nonsense.
    - faitswulff 11y ago
      Didn't know that. Edited to reflect the actual concern, minus the humor.
- serge2k 11y ago
  Personally I'd love to automate * lights * alarm clock (setting, turning it off and on, 15 more minutes) * be able to turn on my xbox/fire tv and tell it I want to watch <x>, then it figures out how * taking the dog out when it's 1am and I just want to go to bed (okay this one might take a little longer).
- vollmond 11y ago
  lots of things would be nice to have control of from work, or even just from bed at night. climate control, door locks, lights, etc.
- modoc 11y ago
  Not the OP but here's some of the stuff I have/want: Have: Adding things to my shopping list (via Alexa - currently in the kitchen and bathroom - two most frequent rooms where I'm like "hey I need more XXXX") Changing the temperature (Nest via phone app and command line tool I wrote, and now Alexa just did a native integration) Finding out my schedule for the day. Finding out the weather forecast for the day. Playing music (via Sonos or Alexa) Locking front door when I'm going to bed. Getting notified of movement or sound in the house while I away (Nest Cam and Smart Things) ...... Like the OP I'd love to have the voice control available in any room of the house. I'd love to have better security features (i.e. if I drive up my driveway at 3 AM turn on the outside lights, if a stranger drives up my driveway at 3 AM WAKE ME UP WITH AN ALARM). I'd love better voice controlled Sonos music selection. Composing emails, having handsfree phone or video calls, warming up the oven at a certain time, etc...
oh_sigh 11y ago
The kinect has gotten good reviews for its microphone array
- chris11 11y ago
  The kinect seems pretty cool. I've heard of one person who brought it into work and used it to identify and greet people who walked into his office. So there is probably some pretty cool user identification projects you could do with it.
- voltagex_ 11y ago
  I haven't bothered getting the SDK for the Kinect 2 yet but both of them seem to only be good for about 135 degrees around the device - the Echo is a much better omnidirectional microphone.
- _asummers 11y ago
  My (admittedly anecdotal) experience having an Xbox One is that it would pick up phrases that barely sounded like built in triggers and do unexpected things at unexpected times, such that I felt forced to disable it.
  - SomeCallMeTim 11y ago
    We've had an Echo since before they were available to the public (ex-Amazon employee here), and it does occasionally beep when it thinks it hears "Alexa." But it's very rare that it goes beyond that; usually we hear the beep and one of us will yell "never mind!", and then the Echo will go silent. Sometimes it will cancel itself, too. I think that the always-listening part is less discriminating than the active voice recognition, and that it can re-parse the last couple of seconds and decide, in retrospect, that you didn't say "Alexa." That said, I just recently said to my wife, "I wonder if Alexa knows 'sudo make me a sandwich'". The timing was such that it parsed "sudo make me a sandwich" and answered, "Well, if you ask like that, how can I refuse?" :) We had a good laugh. Funny thing was, looking at the app later, it was actually parsed as "Pseudo make me a sandwich." I bet Google Now would have corrected it to sudo. :)

ocdtrekkie 11y ago

Yeah, if anyone found something equivalent to the Echo in mic tech that I can hook up to my own setup, I'd die to know. That's the one thing I can't really replicate on my own system.

Swizec 11y ago

> is may bring me one step closer to my personal "holy grail" of home automation: every room in the house[1] working with seamless voice-activated home automation. But why? What do you want to automate? That's the part I never understood about this stuff. What is there to automate in the first place?

faitswulff 11y ago
Yeah, and what about the endless false positives in every room of the house?
- hirsin 11y ago
  It's pretty hard to order something via Alexa - I know, my friends have tried to order me several things ranging from sex toys to more Echos. Never worked. Please don't spread nonsense.
  - faitswulff 11y ago
    Didn't know that. Edited to reflect the actual concern, minus the humor.
serge2k 11y ago
Personally I'd love to automate * lights * alarm clock (setting, turning it off and on, 15 more minutes) * be able to turn on my xbox/fire tv and tell it I want to watch <x>, then it figures out how * taking the dog out when it's 1am and I just want to go to bed (okay this one might take a little longer).
vollmond 11y ago
lots of things would be nice to have control of from work, or even just from bed at night. climate control, door locks, lights, etc.
modoc 11y ago
Not the OP but here's some of the stuff I have/want: Have: Adding things to my shopping list (via Alexa - currently in the kitchen and bathroom - two most frequent rooms where I'm like "hey I need more XXXX") Changing the temperature (Nest via phone app and command line tool I wrote, and now Alexa just did a native integration) Finding out my schedule for the day. Finding out the weather forecast for the day. Playing music (via Sonos or Alexa) Locking front door when I'm going to bed. Getting notified of movement or sound in the house while I away (Nest Cam and Smart Things) ...... Like the OP I'd love to have the voice control available in any room of the house. I'd love to have better security features (i.e. if I drive up my driveway at 3 AM turn on the outside lights, if a stranger drives up my driveway at 3 AM WAKE ME UP WITH AN ALARM). I'd love better voice controlled Sonos music selection. Composing emails, having handsfree phone or video calls, warming up the oven at a certain time, etc...

oh_sigh 11y ago

The kinect has gotten good reviews for its microphone array

chris11 11y ago
The kinect seems pretty cool. I've heard of one person who brought it into work and used it to identify and greet people who walked into his office. So there is probably some pretty cool user identification projects you could do with it.
voltagex_ 11y ago
I haven't bothered getting the SDK for the Kinect 2 yet but both of them seem to only be good for about 135 degrees around the device - the Echo is a much better omnidirectional microphone.
_asummers 11y ago
My (admittedly anecdotal) experience having an Xbox One is that it would pick up phrases that barely sounded like built in triggers and do unexpected things at unexpected times, such that I felt forced to disable it.
- SomeCallMeTim 11y ago
  We've had an Echo since before they were available to the public (ex-Amazon employee here), and it does occasionally beep when it thinks it hears "Alexa." But it's very rare that it goes beyond that; usually we hear the beep and one of us will yell "never mind!", and then the Echo will go silent. Sometimes it will cancel itself, too. I think that the always-listening part is less discriminating than the active voice recognition, and that it can re-parse the last couple of seconds and decide, in retrospect, that you didn't say "Alexa." That said, I just recently said to my wife, "I wonder if Alexa knows 'sudo make me a sandwich'". The timing was such that it parsed "sudo make me a sandwich" and answered, "Well, if you ask like that, how can I refuse?" :) We had a good laugh. Funny thing was, looking at the app later, it was actually parsed as "Pseudo make me a sandwich." I bet Google Now would have corrected it to sudo. :)