It seems that everyone wants to have a virtual assistant at home. A tool that helps you not only put on background music but you can also reserve tickets to shows or simply turn off the lights in the house with just a voice command.
Google, Amazon, Samsung, IBM, Microsoft, are some of the examples of companies that have launched a virtual assistant, but they all have the evil of depending on a large company. But not all are like that, There is Mycroft, a virtual assistant that was born for Gnu / Linux and that it can work on Raspberry Pi, being easy and cheap to get.
First we have to obtain all the necessary components which are the following:
- Raspberry Pi 3
- Microsd card
- Microusb cable
- USB Speakers
- USB microphone
If we have this, before we turn anything on, we have to go to Mycroft official website. In it we will have several installation images for Raspberry Pi 3. In this case we will choose the image called PiCroft. This image is built for Raspberry Pi 3 and is based on Raspbian. Once we have downloaded the installation image, we save it to the microsd card. For this we can use any program for this purpose; An effective and free program for this task is Etcher.
Once we have the microsd card recorded, we have to mount everything and turn on the Raspberry Pi. In this case it is convenient also connect the keyboard for the possible configurations that Raspbian may ask us as the Wifi password or change the username and password of the root user.
The image we have recorded has some configuration wizards that will guide us throughout the process, so the configuration of the USB speakers, the microphone as well as the Mycroft assistant will be a matter of time. But first we need a Mycroft accountThis account can be obtained on the official website of Mycroft, a user account that will serve to store our preferences or tastes via the cloud. After this, we will see how a virtual assistant like Mycroft can do many things for our house and for little money.