Google Kit Brings Voice Control to Raspberry Pi

Voice-controlled gadgets like Amazon Echo and Google Home are all the rage. And now, makers everywhere can construct their own, thanks to Google and the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Google created a kit that lets tinkerers turn a regular Raspberry Pi into a voice-controlled virtual assistant. At this point, the AIY Projects kit isn't available for purchase on its own. You can get it for free when you buy the latest copy of The MagPi — the official Raspberry Pi magazine.

Makers can use the kit to "build a cardboard device that uses the Google Assistant SDK to answer questions, like 'how far away is the Moon?' or 'what is 18 percent of 92?" according to the Raspberry Pi Foundation. You can also integrate the kit with your own projects, and create custom commands to summon it to do all sorts of things, like turn on your lights, for instance.

The kit includes a Google Voice Hardware Accessory on Top (HAT) accessory board, a stereo microphone so it can listen to your commands, a large arcade button, some wires, and a cardboard case to put everything in.

"All you need to add is a Raspberry Pi 3," according to a blog post from the Raspberry Pi Foundation. "Then, after some software setup, you'll have access to the Google Assistant SDK and Google Cloud Speech API." The kit also works with Raspberry Pi Zero and 2.

"The folks at Google, along with us at The MagPi, are really excited to see what projects you can create (or enhance) with this kit, whether you're creating a voice controlled robot or a voice interface that answers all your questions," the Raspberry Pi foundation wrote.