PiCroft - Build your own Voice Assistant

Alexa and Google Home are not your only choices when it comes to Voice Assistants. Mycroft is a promising project that hopes to provide all the same features but with more privacy. It's still just getting started, but it's off to a good start.
If you want to test it out you can build one yourself out of a raspberry pi.
The steps for building your Picroft can be found here:
mycroft.ai/doc...
Other links you'll use:
github.com/Myc...
mycroft.ai
mycroft.ai/to/...
Parts -
Banggood links:
drzzs.com/confmic
drzzs.com/rpi3b+
drzzs.com/rpiPS...
drzzs.com/MiniS...
AmazonUS:
amzn.to/2XaernZ Rpi3b+
amzn.to/2IjAHbC Pi Power Supply
amzn.to/2IkDYY5 Jabra 410
amzn.to/2GO7LX0 PS3 eye
amzn.to/2DUdIyf Mini Speakers
AmazonUK:
amzn.to/2TUYvUJ Rpi3b+
amzn.to/2S6eYUh Pi Power Supply
amzn.to/2S6fIZz Jabra 410
amzn.to/2TWxssa PS3 eye
amzn.to/2BGJzCh Mini Speakers
Yaml Examples (verify formatting, posting here usually screws it up)
Config.yaml
mycroft:
host: 192.168.1.55
notify:
- platform: mycroft
name: picroft
input_text:
picroft:
name: Picroft
Automations.yaml
- alias: picroft tts
id: picrofttexttospeachbox
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: input_text.picroft
action:
service: notify.picroft
data_template:
message: '{{ states.input_text.picroft.state }}'

[@jayextarys8616]

If someone is using the software without buying the hardware, you should consider trying to donate a little to encourage development of independent open source voice assistant! We need that alternative!

[@iamapie13]

I WANT MY TOASTER TO SOUND LIKE STEPHEN HAWKING

[@___echo___]

oh my god

[@milkman5857]

@@___echo___ sorry WE NEED THIS

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

this was great, thank you. I've seen Ada and Almond on the HA list of options, but an extreme lack of "how to" out there. If you get a chance to tackle it, I'd love to see how to try those as well.

[@DrZzs]

I have tried both a little and neither seemed ready for prime time. I want to revisit Mycroft. I think they have changed their plan somewhat. Hopefully it's still moving ahead.

[@JasonWho]

But can it run on a VM with mic/speakers in each room of the house to both have faster processing and get rid of individual devices in each room? That would mean each speaker/mic would need to be its own entity to be addressable in HA. I agree the voice is quite lacking, but there is no shortage of smooth voices out there and I’m sure the time coding is being spent on more important background stuff for now. More exposure like this video and use will help it a lot. I wonder if there’s a way to use Google’s or Alexa’s voice instead... like currently we send inputs to our entities for announcements and such, place an Alexa in between to do the speaking. That would probably take some hacking of an echo to allow it to be offline (to keep the privacy part) and simply receive that input.

[@jdmac44]

Have you tried yet? Just need Raspbian Linux. I was thinking of that this morning.

[@JasonWho]

jdmac44 No, actually I forgot about this VM idea when I stood up my Proxmox server, now ran into a hardware issue I’m battling with before I can even turn HA back on.

[@RyanJohnsonTV]

Is there a way to use the USB camera as a live feed into home assistant using picroft? Would love to use this as an all-in-one security and voice assistant unit in my garage!

[@DmytroYaUa]

Good to hear that there are players that would challenge the giants like Amazon or google, however it still does not seam any private, as the speech recognition happens in the cloud, and i'll still need an internet connection other than using it cloudless. In this way, this is just someone else that's gonna listen my home, unless I get something in the wrong way?

[@mdgrown9739]

Dude ur the man I keep finding ur videos and they are just great thanks AGAIN man!

[@specsix]

I know this sounds strange, but I actually like the more robotic voices over Alexa. Has that more artificial assistant atmosphere.

[@wh00t14]

Indeed, it is strange.

[@jon9947]

This is awesome, not something I would replace my Google Home's with yet, but in a few more years who knows.

[@DrZzs]

exactly! It's not quite going to replace the big 2 yet, but it's a promising project for the DIY & Tin-foil-hat community.

[@mNumair]

so basically to have both home assistant with the mycroft voice assistant I would require two separate raspberry pis ?!

[@koryk9354]

They also have it as a Docker container

[@lucandmendes]

Hi, is there any extra language to voice beside English?

[@goose2574]

just to let you know thar you can use a singstar mic for the ps3 make sure the USB adapter is connected and select the ps3 camera on mic slelection

[@MrREALball]

One problem: it doesn't work without connecting and authenticating on their servers, which is a privacy issue. Ye, sure, they have the source code available to everyone to see, but what's stopping them from modifying their server code to still track you?

[@wchorski]

with you on that. i guess use Almond?

[@baronvonlimbourgh1716]

The pairing is done localy on the device. Right?

[@onekickman9325]

By local files, does it mean I can download voices from third parties from my files?

[@TheSaikek]

I have a Asus Tinkerboard running smart home. It would be great to delegate all the computation to that machine and leave the "speaker" part to RPI Zero.

[@DrZzs]

that's an interesting idea. If you try it and it works let me know.

[@barbarairena6714]

How is the Asus Tinkerboard working running your smart home? Any comments/ recommendations? thanx

[@Gravxmansummnxr]

It would be cool if I they added the ability to code your own AI I mean it is raspberry pi after all it would make since if they did coding your own AI into it would make it a lot more fun for the programs and even those who want to learn programming

[@christzakis7256]

Yo u can lmao, why wouldn't u be able to do that

[@baronvonlimbourgh1716]

It is open source.... go wild.

[@Falcryx]

Is it possible for me to customize the assistant's voices such as replacing them with custom ones?

[@DrZzs]

Not that I know of, but they keep developing it so maybe they've added that feature or maybe they will in the future. Check out their website for the latest information. mycroft.ai/blog/

[@Mayhemsmischief]

you could, using something like LJ dataset, its difficult and requires training a voice model, results can be impressive with good enough data though. If you do make that data though, share it with us. :)

[@ConnerHall]

@@Mayhemsmischief I may try this if I can find a guide

[@Mayhemsmischief]

@@ConnerHall takes weeks of running the training data, and a decently powerful computer. Good luck.

[@ConnerHall]

@@Mayhemsmischief There was a program I saw earlier that did a pretty bang up job with less than 5 minutes of useable audio. I'm just not sure how to take the info I render and fraph it to the program. Something to look into later I suppose!

[@kevinschilling6813]

I think for the source voice, there should be some imbedded settings for speed and pitch..

[@jupiterjs031]

Is English only available? Are other languages ​​supported?

[@TruthDoesNotExist]

is there an equivilant for x86? raspberry pi's are too overpriced and have horrible specs and I don't have one

[@RezeteLima]

may you to make a video about IFTTT without cloud on home assistant please

[@thalisyuriksilvabatista4990]

Can I change USB mic Cam PS3 for XBox Kinect? thanks, this project is Brilliant..

[@HiddenPalm]

I know this is exactly a year later, Im about to start this project in less than a month. I was wondering if MyCroft has added better voices?

[@charisantoniou5640]

Have you built it yet? I really wanna know cause I'm starting the project in about a month

[@HiddenPalm]

@@charisantoniou5640 Not this year. Covid has shut down my business all year. Maybe next year. I also have a lightsaber project on hold. Shit, my whole life is on hold. Wish I lived in Venezuela with rent and insurance freezes and all wages paid for for six months.

[@klsdjfkjdsalfkj]

Did you try Jasper by any chance? Would love to know how the two projects compare.

[@DrZzs]

hadn't heard of Jasper but I'll look into it. Thanks

[@SYNEED]

Warum sind hier so viele deutsche haha

[@tanishkprem7422]

Hi I am so delighted with the working of picroft. But I am using it with the command line which is not very fun. I was not willing to buy an extra microphone just to give input through voice. Is it possible to use earphone mic for input. Once again your video was way too good.

[@Stahl_und_Eisen]

Bro a mic is 7$

[@wikitheonlyone]

Does it work completely Offline, or do i have to send all commands to a online server to be processed?

[@DrZzs]

If I recall, there is an offline mode, but you have to do a lot more teaching. They've continued to development since I did this so I'm not sure exactly what it can do now.

[@snupchester2591]

Hello sir, first of all great job and nice video. Is it possible to change the language? I want to change it in German language. Do i have to install a software like raspbian before I download this image? And is it possible to download more images instead of one? Thank you :) Ps: Sorry for my bad English.. :(

[@SYNEED]

Haha Bruder ich will es auch machen aber mit der Deutschen stimme von J.A.R.V.I.S. aber so wie es aussieht muss man dann alles selber coden 😬

[@snupchester2591]

@@SYNEED haha bis der Typ vom Video irgendwann mal antwortet dann haben wir das schon auf Chinesisch eingestellt 😂

[@JuanSanchez-rb4qu]

No "hey HAL" option?

[@DrZzs]

I know! How could you leave that out!

[@mikkelrask8172]

Its horribly slow and sounds like garbage

[@shingles1465]

Is there a way to just make your own picroft on pc ?

[@appleneworleans4018]

TOTAL COST from 0 to complete?

[@ashrafhalaika6381]

can it tell you locations?

[@benjocaz45]

now, how to get picroft to output to a volumio pi?

[@rajpandey22457]

After Setup My PIcroft Didn't Reboot and Direct Took me to COmmand Line And It doesn't Showing The Registry Code. It showing Error " mycroft.messagebus.client.ws:on_error:81 - Error - Exception Closing websocket : ConnectionRefusedError(111,'Connection Refused') " Then It again tries to reconnect and its in loop. Help!

[@somebody759]

Can this device run offline?

[@dr0nygames]

Well let's be honest, it's been almost two years since the video came out and except of a few games google and alexa can't do anything else even now lol

[@MaskedCrypto]

Hey Quick question. Can I add my own commands such as "Hey Picroft, who am I"? and it respond with an automated message input I add for example "You are Epichtex"?

[@DrZzs]

I'm not sure. I would expect you can, but I didn't try that specifically.

[@entflairyt2301]

We got his ip adress...good job 😂

[@pro.empire]

is there a way to make it sound human?? or what best out there to use as for out calling?

[@ShiroCh_ID]

it sounds like a Vocaloids V1 xD oh wait did we can fork the software and use some utau thingy as a voice!? hm...

[@HokuspokusPizzaonyourFokus]

how can i change the language to german

[@jrvlogs3641]

Is it support raspberry Pi 4

[@slice2019]

Sorry but works on PI zero 2w?

[@bacardi3393]

finally much awaited video

[@DrZzs]

Awesome! Glad to finally get it done :)

[@carlabihawbar7459]

can u change to costum name??

[@constantinamundsen2487]

i wouldnt cheap out on the microphone for more advanced stuff

[@DrZzs]

ya, the mic was a weak link for sure.

[@dystoniaify]

So you have to have the pi plugged directly to ethernet?

[@henriquefchaves]

You can start play some radio/music like alexa?

[@sasikalamanda5686]

Can u send me the code

[@nalossu8564]

can we use any mic?

[@StEvUgnIn]

Better set up a docker container

[@DrZzs]

I've not tried docker yet.

[@johnmheaton]

Thanks for making the video, I'll give it a go.

[@DrZzs]

cool! It's been a fun device to play with. I'll definitely keep it running and use it mixed in with the other 2.

[@maxi-g]

this is bad

[@Lets-Game]

Dies this Work with the rpi4 too?

[@casen2007]

Hey all, This will be a long question. With Alexa, I could only say "turn on lights" with it knowing which light to turn on with out using the device name. But with any other type of device, it asked which device I am talking about. With picroft/mycroft, could I set up an automation where I will say turn on tv/fan/ect. and it know I mean the one in that same room? Anyone who could answer, would help me a lot with making a decision to add this in to my setup.

[@baronvonlimbourgh1716]

You would need multiple picrofts, one for every room and then use home assistant to turn on the lights in the same room the picroft is in that made the request.

[@usayedd4409]

Hello can we use this for commercial use?

[@dennman37]

It's open source software, so yeah, that should be okay.

[@DrZzs]

agreed. You might contact the Mycroft guys. I know they recently decided to focus more on developing the PiCroft and less on developing their own hardware.

[@Syzen]

can you use headphones with a mic instead of a speaker and a mic

[@DrZzs]

good question. I don't know for sure. it needs to be a USB output, so if the headphones get their input from the USB and not the audio jack, then I would expect they would work.

[@willdwyer6782]

What would it take to run this on a model 4B pi using a Bluetooth speaker and microphone? I've got a Bluetooth Star Trek comm badge that would be great. The only thing that would make it better is if it sounded like Majel Roddenberry.

[@baronvonlimbourgh1716]

Probably if you use a bluetooth dongle that plugs into the 3.5mm jack it should work. The pi will see it as a wired device

[@CrayyyCrayyy]

Does Picroft work ok on a Raspberry Pi 4? :)

[@MycroftAIForEveryone]

Yes! We recently released a new image to support the Pi 4 - community.mycroft.ai/t/picroft-2019-11-01-released-to-unstable/

[@BOman9999]

On the website it says all above pi 3. 2 does limited functions

[@theaddies]

Thanks for the video. This is an important project and I donated to it.

[@DrZzs]

Excellent! I haven't checked in on them in a few months. Last I saw they were going to focus more on making software that will run on an rpi instead of building their own hardware. I think that's a good decision. Hope they have a lot of success!

[@theaddies]

@@DrZzs Agreed. I actually quite like it. It is not as fast as the alternatives, but it works well. An open source alternative is important. I do not like the idea of having a microphone recording me all the time.

[@devmehta4204]

Does it work on wifi? Or we have to keep it connected to ethernet

[@MrZooobaaa]

thumbs up for popey / alan pope

[@marcello4258]

too bad you also need to register it to yet another data collector

[@wchorski]

"By default, Mycroft will not store your usage data or keep any recordings of your voice." i know we are taking their word for it, but one could only hope. that or use Almond i guess

[@marcello4258]

@@wchorski then the later

[@liamrobinson2449]

Very nice, would this work with a Respeaker HAT instead of the Eye microphone/Camera? i'm looking at compacting everything into a small container like an Echo

[@DrZzs]

Unfortunately last I checked the Picroft docs they were not supporting the Respeaker hats. I have a pi hat amp I tried to use for sound output and it was a no go :( There’s an update out now for the Mycroft software I saw recently. Maybe they’ll add Respeaker hat support soon.

[@saimanoharpeddinti4039]

can we change the name of picroft any other custom names...........

[@DrZzs]

Yes, the process of how to do it is in the video. You must have just missed it. :)

[@ashrafhalaika6381]

in 7:37 where do i write that?

[@usurpinesusanti3149]

I would give it a try if there is no need for going online and do registrations. I cannot see privacy in this yet. I would never install alexa or google assist in my home.

[@michaelhashimoto1650]

I think you can host your own server if you want: mycroft-ai.gitbook.io/docs/about-mycroft-ai/faq Though I've never tried it, I am very interested in self-hosting if that's a real option.

[@consumerofgood]

What phone are you using?

[@firstnamelastname9398]

This is probably one of the most secure, if you simply don't check the box that says you wanna help them out. Besides, it's entirely open source. So feel free to change whatever you don't like

[@firstnamelastname9398]

@@consumerofgood I am sad to be the first like on your genius comment

[@ShockOfKnowledge]

Many people value privacy. You've managed to make that seem creepy.

[@luchoescobar]

This is great I supposed it’s only English available right now??

[@DrZzs]

yes, as far as I know it is only english right now.

[@sonicloud3149]

Is it possible to run Picroft on the same Rasp B+ as my Home Assistant is on?

[@wchorski]

you'll have to have installed HA the Supervisor way

[@doomgod314]

Please invest in a pop filter. I can hear your spit

[@DrZzs]

be glad you weren't sitting in front of me I guess!

[@tamir5940]

So let me ask.... my Croft doesn’t run with Raspbian right?

[@DrZzs]

yes, you can just install the packages and run it on a pi that already runs raspbian. Check their website. I'm pretty sure I saw some instructions there.

[@tamir5940]

DrZzs I tried.... seems it only runs as a terminal. Not on pi desktop and I never seen a video that ran Mycroft the way Alexa or google does.

[@phillipfrost2699]

that got a little too technical at the end

[@ashrafhalaika6381]

is the part in 7:37 needed?

[@PatrickLangendoen]

What happens if you unplug internet access? I have a completely isolated ssid and vlan for my iot stuff, which is accessible from my main vlan (so only initiated from the specified direction) and does not have internet access because of privacy concerns. And I know one thing for sure it is that no device in with a microphone in my house is connected to the internet 24*7. Ready to stream whenever the "c&c server" says so. So if I were to build myself a picroft I would connect it to the isolated iot network. So I am honestly interested in whether the picroft is able to function without internet access while still being usable to switch my HA stuff.

[@teddyruxpin3811]

It's been 3 years since you wrote this comment. Did you find out if picroft can function on an isolated IOT network without internet access?

[@PatrickLangendoen]

@@teddyruxpin3811 I'm sorry in the end I never used it..

[@theunderdog2205]

👍🏿

[@randomchannelthatexists8483]

Is there a way to make it power certain usb ports and turn them off?

[@DrZzs]

not directly from the pi if that's what you mean. You can pair it with other smart devices like plugs or switches and then turn them off. I don't know if there is a software that allows the pi to power on/off USB ports. I'd be surprised if there was. There are some "smart" USB adapters (like the sonoff micro) that could work. Good luck!

[@randomchannelthatexists8483]

@@DrZzs thx

[@graemecollin]

Interesting ... How does this project look two years down the line, given the amount of development of the software, and the hardware advances? Would be interesting to see how it performs on one of the Nvidia Jetson boards, and if it has access to those 'AI' GPUs they have ...

[@OldCurmudgeon3DP]

So, I'm guessing this won't run along side HA on the same Pi.

[@DrZzs]

Probably not, but maybe. We need to ask Franck if it could be an addon.

[@DrZzs]

It would very likely run as a VM using Proxmox though :)

[@smorrow]

speech is spelled wrong at 7:40

[@DrZzs]

doh! thanks

[@kbxbr]

Beavis! LoL

[@samuel238]

I just wanna do this to have a voice assistant i can call Jarvis xD

[@testjeaapiel9707]

that allready exists :P

[@waberoid]

For some reason I can't see any of the advanced settings

[@DrZzs]

hmmm. Maybe they changed the interface with an update? Sorry, I can't say for sure.

[@jaromanda]

Do you think a pi3A+ would cut it?

[@DrZzs]

It may... The first issue you'd have to overcome is using wifi instead of Ethernet. Setting up wifi isn't hard, there are instructions on how to enable wifi on the pi image. I tried it, but the problem I had was my pi connected to my 5ghz network and the picroft image only supports the 2.4ghz band. I have the same SSID and PW for my 5ghz and 2.4ghz. If you have separated bands then you should be fine. The other difference is the amount of memory in the A+ vs the B+. I don't know how much ram the picroft uses. My guess is, it would work, but maybe slower. If you get it working I'd love to here about it.

[@linuxuser1234]

how do I make a ai assistant that tells me my o2 and depth

[@revenger9900]

Just sleep

[@MaskedCrypto]

Also, I want to have this in my car. Do you have any ideas on how I can do this as it needs an Ethernet cable?

[@DrZzs]

I can't say I have a solution for that. Maybe if you somehow connect a 3g board to the rpi, but then you'd still have to figure out how to get Mycroft to use that connection. I'm not sure that's going to be possible. At least I can't say I know how to do it. Sorry.

[@Knutowskie]

ethernet connection is just an option i guess. try wifi or a 3g/4g usb stick and see if it works

[@vedx1]

If you have one of those cars with a WiFi hotspot, you could connect it to that

[@stephanevally170]

-1 again because of only English (but the work it represents is astonishing). The home assistant skill is amazing !! I guess I have to grab another Pi xD I'll play with phonems to match my french accent ^^

[@DrZzs]

haha! that'll be fun to hear.

[@maximumwoof8662]

phonemEs

[@tryptex]

Does it work with Insteon?

[@DrZzs]

Good question. I don't know but I'd guess not. You'll have to check the mycroft website. mycroft.ai/documentation/ sorry, that's all I can tell you :)

[@demonsgd5520]

I play MyCroft

[@DrZzs]

sweet! is it like Minecraft?

[@harmanndhiman9492]

I’m writing my own code is c but thanks this was helpful tho

[@krishnankv7894]

sir.. can we give our own custom name for Ai assistant?

[@DrZzs]

yes, you sure can! that's one of the coolest things about Mycroft. There are some limits, but you kinda have to try the name you want and see how well he'll recognize it. I tried a couple and the problem with short-easy names is false activations. When I set the wake word as "yo" it would trigger on all kinds of random noises.

[@MaskedCrypto]

@@DrZzs Hey Quick question. Can I add my own commands such as "Hey Picroft, who am I"? and it respond with an automated message input I add for example "You are Epichtex"?

[@donutpvp7720]

have you tried out snips.ai?

[@DrZzs]

Not yet but I would like to someday. Have you tried it?

[@donutpvp7720]

DrZzs i have tested it a bit and it seems to work great but I haven‘t connected it to HA yet. The TTS isn‘t the best but it‘s possible to change it. The wake word detection works really great. For now I only tested it with a headset but I ordered a respeaker mic array for it. It also works completly offline.

[@corleones6319]

u got a subs!

[@DrZzs]

thanks!

[@salim.studio]

Amazing

[@DrZzs]

hey brother! good to see you as always

[@noahmichael4557]

the floating head is amazing

[@DrZzs]

really? I've caught a bit of flack for it. I don't do it much at all anymore. I thought it was fun. I think the Mycroft guys are changing strategy a bit to focus more on turning the Rpi into a voice assistant instead of building a full device with custom components. I need to update this video.

[@noahmichael4557]

@@DrZzs great

[@MystixHalo]

ummmm.... i cant find the mycroft settings, lol. can i have the link pls?

[@gersonfer]

what about snips ?!

[@heimdallmidgard4670]

Would prefer snips too

[@blackphidora]

check out snips.ai as well!

[@mathesonstep]

First?

[@DrZzs]

yep. You're first ! :)

[@cdelcollado]

Matheson Steplock who cares?