Voxelmanip Forums
ggtyler ggtyler
Posted on 2022-09-22 02:56 Link | ID: 500
So I thought it'd be fun to document my personal hardware projects here. I want to work and finish on two things before the end of the year: A voice assistant thing (based on Mycroft) and a portable Wii (based on GBoy, but with most likely different parts and case since the kit is discontinued.) Since the Wii is less practical and will take a while for me to pay and source for everything, I figured I'd do the voice thing first.

This is based on Mycroft, which is an open source voice assistant program that lets me add on top of it easily with Python. The last time I tried it the voice recognition wasn't very good, but it's been a few years since I did. If it doesn't work I might fork it and switch it out for a different lib.

I'll be getting a Pi 3 B for this, which right now is ~$60 on eBay ($35 normally but all official sources are out of stock.) Anything above that should work as well. I'll also be getting a speaker and microphone, not sure which ones yet, but probably around $20 total. If the Pi doesn't come with it, I'll need to get an 8GB MicroSD card ($10). I have plenty of Micro USB power adapters as well, no need to worry about that.

The most difficult part is designing and making the case. I don't have a 3D printer but I do have a place near me that lets me print stuff for ($5?) per item. This will probably be costly too if I don't get everything perfect or it breaks.

In total, it'll be around $85 cheapest, and ~$100 max. It's $35-50 more than a Google Nest Mini, sure, but it's a fun project, I get to add stuff to it (like new voice stuff or anything else on Pi, like Pi-Hole), and I don't have to give money to Google.

I think I'm gonna start buying everything next week and start assembling it when the parts arrive. Feel free to leave suggestions and whatnot.
ggtyler ggtyler
Posted on 2022-09-29 15:00 Link | ID: 503
UPDATE

So it turns out the $60 Pi 3b's on eBay are actually just auctions. The BIN ones are $90-100, and I'm not paying a 3x markup, at least for right now when I only have a half paycheck (since I just started working.)

No official reseller has restocked since I last checked (unsurprisingly...) and Newegg / Amazon are listing for $120+. Local craigslist listings are similar.

There is, however, a catch - At my workplace there's several cheapo computers used for training and such. At least two of those are being replaced with better models, and if I can swindle my boss to sell one to me, I'll be able to load Pi's image on to it and use that instead.

We'll see how that goes tomorrow. If that doesn't work, I'll just buy it in 2 weeks.
olive olive
Posted on 2022-09-29 21:46 Link | ID: 504
Holy moly, didn't realise how expensive Pi's had become. :O
At that price it'd be better to look into some of those actual dedicated mini-servers rather than a Pi.
Pimoroni clearly has no stock as I can't even find Pis listed on the site at the mo', but does have some Pi 4's included with the essentials kit (£88/$98)
ggtyler ggtyler
Posted on 2022-09-30 23:05 (edited 2022-09-30 23:06) Link | ID: 505
UPDATE: He said no :(
Holy moly, didn't realise how expensive Pi's had become :O
I know, it's crazy. Amazon even has some listed at $180 (Over 5x markup!!!)
It would actually be more cost effective to buy a switch lite at this point.
Heredos Heredos
Posted on 2022-10-03 08:50 Link | ID: 506
Wtf?
Pis were supposed to be cheap, how did it end up so badly?
Too much demand?
Chip shortage?
I remember being able to buy one with my little pocket money for 50€...
ggtyler ggtyler
Posted on 2022-10-27 08:35 (edited 2022-10-27 09:14) Link | ID: 513
So it's been about a month, lmao.

I was going to get around to this project but work ended up exhausting me and taking up a lot of time.

Just to catch up, last time I was gonna get a Pi, but they're too expensive...

>>506 Mostly chip shortage + demand + eBay being a bitch.

What IS cheap though, is old PCs. Last time I tried to get one from my boss, which didn't work out, but instead I have THIS:



This is what I call the "Piece of Shitâ„¢"

It's an HP laptop, model whatever, with a plastic case so incredibly fragile that the screw holes for the display hinge broke off, resulting in a barely connected display. I haven't used it in months, but the price is literally $0 plus it has a crapper mic and speaker, so why not!

I was thinking of putting the Pi OS image on here for an easy install, but I figured I'd just use Ubuntu normally, so let's gooooooooooooooooooo............



🥱

Okay, as of typing, it's compiling mimic, which is its voice engine. More info here. The biggest thing is, this will take a lot of time to build. And it's 2:30 in the morning right now.

So...update next month? Next month.

UPDATE: NEVER FUCKING MIND apparently it lied to me!

Let's test this baby out!



...okay this isn't working very well.

I did notice it was already paired with this, so maybe I installed it a few years ago or something. But it doesn't recognize most of the default skills, minus hello world. At least I can use custom skills.

I set up an alarm at 11 am as well and it said that's in 11 hours, even though it's 3 am. So yeah, not the brightest bulb. But we'll see how it fairs when I wake up.