8 ms·

Definitely not something I’d consider. However, someone here on HN recently posted the open source voice assistant project mycroft: https://mycroft.ai/ https:

Definitely not something I’d consider. However, someone here on HN recently posted the open source voice assistant project mycroft: https://mycroft.ai/ https://mycroft.ai/ Fun to mess around with on Raspi and eventually I may link it up with Home Asssistant.

acidburnNSA 9y ago
Ohh that's exciting. I was excited about Snips when it came out for similar reasons but was really annoyed when they advertised custom trigger words so hard and then withheld it in the premium version. On first glance, hmmm: why does this open source AI require that I create an account on their webpage before trying it out?
- rpearl 9y ago
  https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-core https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-core > Mycroft AI, Inc. maintains a device and account management system known as Mycroft Home. Developers may sign up at: https://home.mycroft.ai https://home.mycroft.ai By default, mycroft-core is configured to use Home. By saying "Hey Mycroft, pair my device" (or any other request verbal request) you will be informed that your device needs to be paired. Mycroft will speak a 6-digit code which you can entered into the pairing page within the Mycroft Home site. [...] > If you do not wish to use the Mycroft Home service, you may insert your own API keys into the configuration files listed below in configuration.
  - acidburnNSA 9y ago
    > If you do not wish to use the Mycroft Home service, you may insert your own API keys into the configuration files listed below in configuration. Bingo I'm in! Thanks a lot. This looks awesome.
- oulipo 9y ago
  Hi, I'm a co-founder of Snips.ai First, there is no premium version. The whole platform is free to use. Forever. And we are starting to open-source it. For the trigger words, I think there is a slight confusion about what the are. There are actually two kinds of trigger words: - ones which are universal, and are very hard to train (it takes a lot of data and use NN models). Those are paid because we need to get the data (this is the only reason) - ones which are much simpler and can be trained on your device. This will come in the next release of the platform! Stay tuned for the next release where the personal hotword is coming!
  - bronco21016 9y ago
    You didn’t really answer the question of why one needs to create an account.
    - jdmichal 9y ago
      Because that particular question was not targeted at Snips, but at Mycroft.
      - bronco21016 9y ago
        Definitely seems directed at Snips if you read the parent and then the comment from Snips rep.
  - acidburnNSA 9y ago
    Thanks for the info. I was told "We currently provide custom hotwords only in our enterprise offer." so I just equated that to a premium version. Looking forward to seeing the simple device-only trained words. I have a local-only setup so cloud connections of any kind are deal-breakers for my personal use case.
michaericalribo 9y ago
User beware Mycroft Canner tho
dingo_bat 9y ago
> I may link it up with Home Asssistant Which one? And why would you not consider Facebook's speaker but are apparently using somebody else's same product.
- gh02t 9y ago
  Home Assistant is an open source home automation tool, not a voice assistant. It's very good, I've been using it since early days. They also place a big emphasis on privacy and local control. https://www.home-assistant.io/ https://www.home-assistant.io/
  - acidburnNSA 9y ago
    It's extremely good. I've been using it for a few years now in multiple locations and it's really incredibly powerful. Turn an old boiler into a smart furnace with a $5 MCU and a relay? Done. Full security system with email notifications containing snapshots from your webcam? Done. Turn old IR remote control into a full-house controller with a $1 IR receiver? Done. Man I love home-assistant.
    - potench 9y ago
      Do you have any tutorials, docs, code or anywhere you can send me for helpful tips on doing this with an IR remote/receiver? I want to automate a garage door and a gate because I accidentally leave them open all the time and they aren’t easy to see from the house so it would be nice to have a notification or state manager on my phone.
      - gh02t 9y ago
        There's a lot to learn if you're starting with electronics and automation from scratch, but you can start with the Adafruit tutorial on IR: https://learn.adafruit.com/using-an-infrared-library/hardware-needed https://learn.adafruit.com/using-an-infrared-library/hardwar... I do something similar, I have an ESP8266 microcontroller hooked up to an IR sender/receiver that I can use to send and receive codes from Home Assistant to control some stuff. The module I use takes care of encoding and decoding the IR and simply dumps it to serial, which the micro reads and forwards to Home Assistant via MQTT (and vice versa). It's this one https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5V-IR-Infrared-Remote-Decoder-Encoding-Transmitter-Receiver-Wireless-Module/32580582483.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5V-IR-Infrared-Remote-Decode... but it's not hard to do it with a bare IR emitter and receiver. Unfortunately I haven't had have much time lately to document many of my projects for other people, but you can learn a lot from Youtube and Google these days.
cmsimike 9y ago
Similarly, I've started using Snips.ai in conjunction with Home Assistant, and I'm continuously overjoyed whenever I ask Snips to do anything, or I ask it for information, with the knowledge that everything is hosted on site, and everything is custom made specifically for what I want.
- stryk 9y ago
  Woah! snips.ai looks interesting. I might just fool around with this for a weekend project. thanks for the link!
- oulipo 9y ago
  Hi! I'm the co-founder of https://snips.ai https://snips.ai and we build a 100% on-device Voice AI platform. The ASR and NLU are running on a Raspberry Pi 3, and best of all it is free and we are open-sourcing it, starting with the NLU https://github.com/snipsco/snips-nlu https://github.com/snipsco/snips-nlu https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-nlu-is-an-open-source-private-by-design-alternative-to-dialogflow-amazon-lex-and-other-nlu-a95dbe16f4a1 https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-nlu-is-an-open-source-priv... The whole platform runs on-device which makes it ideal for privacy, cost, and to allow it to run when there is no network, from hotword to ASR and NLU We are available in English, French, German, and soon Japanese and Korean, with more European languages coming! Take a look at what some people have built with it: https://github.com/snipsco/awesome-snips https://github.com/snipsco/awesome-snips and a few tutorials to get you started: https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-a-voice-controlled-home-sound-system-using-snips-and-sonos-2aaf16523ce9 https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-a-voice-controlled-home...
  - 220V_USKettle 9y ago
    Any recommendations for microphones, particularly in an environment with lots of flat surfaces (concrete/glass) and talkative people? Non-directional.
    - jffry 9y ago
      They've got a pretty in-depth article on their blog: https://medium.com/snips-ai/benchmarking-microphone-arrays-950de8876fda https://medium.com/snips-ai/benchmarking-microphone-arrays-9...
swlkr 9y ago
Oh this is really cool, makes me want to build one
pishpash 9y ago
Where does it process its speech and with what?
- tikihiki 9y ago
  There's some info here: https://mycroft.ai/documentation/mycroft-software-hardware/ https://mycroft.ai/documentation/mycroft-software-hardware/ Looks like it can all be done offline + OSS except for Speech-To-Text. But I think the key idea is even if it's using cloud for processing, you can at least trust it isn't listening when it shouldn't be (as long as always-on, wake word detection is offline).
  - rhindi 9y ago
    Speech to text is precisely the most sensitive thing to protect. There is simply no way to offer real Privacy when processing voice in the cloud.
- oulipo 9y ago
  At https://snips.ai https://snips.ai, we process all on the device, from the speech recognition to the NLU. You can then use any language to create skills to make it perform actions. Take a look at how to build a connected speaker with Snips: https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-a-voice-controlled-home-sound-system-using-snips-and-sonos-2aaf16523ce9 https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-a-voice-controlled-home...
- hanklazard 9y ago
  I’ve only played around with mycroft a bit, but I’m pretty sure the language processing occurs via cloud (home.mycroft.ai). As it’s open source, you can plug it into a local STT if you want to. The Snips.ai platform seems like it was designed for keeping everything local out-of-the-box, which is why I’m going to try it out this afternoon! After all, I really only want it to understand a handful of commands, mainly around audio and lights.

acidburnNSA 9y ago

Ohh that's exciting. I was excited about Snips when it came out for similar reasons but was really annoyed when they advertised custom trigger words so hard and then withheld it in the premium version. On first glance, hmmm: why does this open source AI require that I create an account on their webpage before trying it out?

rpearl 9y ago
https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-core https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-core > Mycroft AI, Inc. maintains a device and account management system known as Mycroft Home. Developers may sign up at: https://home.mycroft.ai https://home.mycroft.ai By default, mycroft-core is configured to use Home. By saying "Hey Mycroft, pair my device" (or any other request verbal request) you will be informed that your device needs to be paired. Mycroft will speak a 6-digit code which you can entered into the pairing page within the Mycroft Home site. [...] > If you do not wish to use the Mycroft Home service, you may insert your own API keys into the configuration files listed below in configuration.
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  > If you do not wish to use the Mycroft Home service, you may insert your own API keys into the configuration files listed below in configuration. Bingo I'm in! Thanks a lot. This looks awesome.
oulipo 9y ago
Hi, I'm a co-founder of Snips.ai First, there is no premium version. The whole platform is free to use. Forever. And we are starting to open-source it. For the trigger words, I think there is a slight confusion about what the are. There are actually two kinds of trigger words: - ones which are universal, and are very hard to train (it takes a lot of data and use NN models). Those are paid because we need to get the data (this is the only reason) - ones which are much simpler and can be trained on your device. This will come in the next release of the platform! Stay tuned for the next release where the personal hotword is coming!
- bronco21016 9y ago
  You didn’t really answer the question of why one needs to create an account.
  - jdmichal 9y ago
    Because that particular question was not targeted at Snips, but at Mycroft.
    - bronco21016 9y ago
      Definitely seems directed at Snips if you read the parent and then the comment from Snips rep.
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  Thanks for the info. I was told "We currently provide custom hotwords only in our enterprise offer." so I just equated that to a premium version. Looking forward to seeing the simple device-only trained words. I have a local-only setup so cloud connections of any kind are deal-breakers for my personal use case.

michaericalribo 9y ago

User beware Mycroft Canner tho

dingo_bat 9y ago

> I may link it up with Home Asssistant Which one? And why would you not consider Facebook's speaker but are apparently using somebody else's same product.

gh02t 9y ago
Home Assistant is an open source home automation tool, not a voice assistant. It's very good, I've been using it since early days. They also place a big emphasis on privacy and local control. https://www.home-assistant.io/ https://www.home-assistant.io/
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  It's extremely good. I've been using it for a few years now in multiple locations and it's really incredibly powerful. Turn an old boiler into a smart furnace with a $5 MCU and a relay? Done. Full security system with email notifications containing snapshots from your webcam? Done. Turn old IR remote control into a full-house controller with a $1 IR receiver? Done. Man I love home-assistant.
  - potench 9y ago
    Do you have any tutorials, docs, code or anywhere you can send me for helpful tips on doing this with an IR remote/receiver? I want to automate a garage door and a gate because I accidentally leave them open all the time and they aren’t easy to see from the house so it would be nice to have a notification or state manager on my phone.
    - gh02t 9y ago
      There's a lot to learn if you're starting with electronics and automation from scratch, but you can start with the Adafruit tutorial on IR: https://learn.adafruit.com/using-an-infrared-library/hardware-needed https://learn.adafruit.com/using-an-infrared-library/hardwar... I do something similar, I have an ESP8266 microcontroller hooked up to an IR sender/receiver that I can use to send and receive codes from Home Assistant to control some stuff. The module I use takes care of encoding and decoding the IR and simply dumps it to serial, which the micro reads and forwards to Home Assistant via MQTT (and vice versa). It's this one https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5V-IR-Infrared-Remote-Decoder-Encoding-Transmitter-Receiver-Wireless-Module/32580582483.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5V-IR-Infrared-Remote-Decode... but it's not hard to do it with a bare IR emitter and receiver. Unfortunately I haven't had have much time lately to document many of my projects for other people, but you can learn a lot from Youtube and Google these days.

cmsimike 9y ago

Similarly, I've started using Snips.ai in conjunction with Home Assistant, and I'm continuously overjoyed whenever I ask Snips to do anything, or I ask it for information, with the knowledge that everything is hosted on site, and everything is custom made specifically for what I want.

stryk 9y ago
Woah! snips.ai looks interesting. I might just fool around with this for a weekend project. thanks for the link!
oulipo 9y ago
Hi! I'm the co-founder of https://snips.ai https://snips.ai and we build a 100% on-device Voice AI platform. The ASR and NLU are running on a Raspberry Pi 3, and best of all it is free and we are open-sourcing it, starting with the NLU https://github.com/snipsco/snips-nlu https://github.com/snipsco/snips-nlu https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-nlu-is-an-open-source-private-by-design-alternative-to-dialogflow-amazon-lex-and-other-nlu-a95dbe16f4a1 https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-nlu-is-an-open-source-priv... The whole platform runs on-device which makes it ideal for privacy, cost, and to allow it to run when there is no network, from hotword to ASR and NLU We are available in English, French, German, and soon Japanese and Korean, with more European languages coming! Take a look at what some people have built with it: https://github.com/snipsco/awesome-snips https://github.com/snipsco/awesome-snips and a few tutorials to get you started: https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-a-voice-controlled-home-sound-system-using-snips-and-sonos-2aaf16523ce9 https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-a-voice-controlled-home...
- 220V_USKettle 9y ago
  Any recommendations for microphones, particularly in an environment with lots of flat surfaces (concrete/glass) and talkative people? Non-directional.
  - jffry 9y ago
    They've got a pretty in-depth article on their blog: https://medium.com/snips-ai/benchmarking-microphone-arrays-950de8876fda https://medium.com/snips-ai/benchmarking-microphone-arrays-9...

swlkr 9y ago

Oh this is really cool, makes me want to build one

pishpash 9y ago

Where does it process its speech and with what?

tikihiki 9y ago
There's some info here: https://mycroft.ai/documentation/mycroft-software-hardware/ https://mycroft.ai/documentation/mycroft-software-hardware/ Looks like it can all be done offline + OSS except for Speech-To-Text. But I think the key idea is even if it's using cloud for processing, you can at least trust it isn't listening when it shouldn't be (as long as always-on, wake word detection is offline).
- rhindi 9y ago
  Speech to text is precisely the most sensitive thing to protect. There is simply no way to offer real Privacy when processing voice in the cloud.
oulipo 9y ago
At https://snips.ai https://snips.ai, we process all on the device, from the speech recognition to the NLU. You can then use any language to create skills to make it perform actions. Take a look at how to build a connected speaker with Snips: https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-a-voice-controlled-home-sound-system-using-snips-and-sonos-2aaf16523ce9 https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-a-voice-controlled-home...
hanklazard 9y ago
I’ve only played around with mycroft a bit, but I’m pretty sure the language processing occurs via cloud (home.mycroft.ai). As it’s open source, you can plug it into a local STT if you want to. The Snips.ai platform seems like it was designed for keeping everything local out-of-the-box, which is why I’m going to try it out this afternoon! After all, I really only want it to understand a handful of commands, mainly around audio and lights.