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Crossing digital assistants with retro toys

From RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>
Subject Crossing digital assistants with retro toys
Newsgroups comp.misc
Message-ID <p2vrfe-mlk.ln1@raspberry.therandymon.com> (permalink)
Organization blocknews - www.blocknews.net
Date 2017-12-09 02:40 +0000

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From the «Teddy Ruxpin, roll me a joint, please» department:
Title: Marvellous retrofitted home assistants
Author: Alex Bate
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2017 08:56:40 -0500
Link: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/retrofitted-home-assistants/

As more and more digital home assistants are appearing on the consumer market,
it’s not uncommon to see the towering Amazon Echo or sleek Google Home when
visiting friends or family. But we, the maker community, are rarely happy
unless our tech stands out from the rest. So without further ado, here’s a
roundup of some fantastic retrofitted home assistant projects you can recreate
and give pride of place in your kitchen, on your bookshelf, or wherever else
you’d like to talk to your virtual, disembodied PA.

Google AIY Robot Conversion[1]

Turned an 80s Tomy Mr Money into a little Google AIY / Raspberry Pi based
assistant.

Matt ‘Circuitbeard’ Brailsford’s Tomy Mr Money Google AIY Assistant[2] is just
one of many home-brew home assistants makers have built since the release of
APIs for Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Here are some more…

Teddy Ruxpin

Oh Teddy, how exciting and mysterious you were when I unwrapped you back in the
mideighties. With your awkwardly moving lips and twitching eyelids, you were
the cream of the crop of robotic toys! How was I to know that during my
thirties, you would become augmented with home assistant software and suddenly
instil within me a fear unlike any I’d felt before? (Save for my lifelong
horror of ET…)

Alexa Ruxpin – Raspberry Pi & Alexa Powered Teddy Bear[3]

Please watch: “DIY Fidget LED Display – Part 1”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAZIc82Duzk -~-~~-~~~-~~-~- There are tons of
virtual assistants out on the market: Siri, Ok Google, Alexa, etc. I had this
crazy idea…what if I made the virtual assistant real…kinda. I decided to take
an old animatronic teddy bear and hack it so that it ran Amazon Alexa.

Several makers around the world have performed surgery on Teddy to install a
Raspberry Pi within his stomach and integrate him with Amazon Alexa Voice or
Google’s AIY Projects Voice kit. And because these makers are talented, they’ve
also managed to hijack Teddy’s wiring to make his lips move in time with his
responses to your commands. Freaky…

Speaking of freaky: check out Zack’s Furlexa[4] — an Amazon Alexa Furby that
will haunt your nightmares.

Give old tech new life

Devices that were the height of technology when you purchased them may now be
languishing in your attic collecting dust. With new and improved versions of
gadgets and gizmos being released almost constantly, it is likely that your
household harbours a spare whosit or whatsit which you can dismantle and give a
new Raspberry Pi heart and purpose.

Take, for example, Martin Mander’s Google Pi intercom[5]. By gutting and
thoroughly cleaning a vintage intercom, Martin fashioned a suitable housing the
Google AIY Projects Voice kit to create a new home assistant for his house:

1986 Google Pi Intercom[6]

This is a 1986 Radio Shack Intercom that I’ve converted into a Google Home
style device using a Raspberry Pi and the Google AIY (Artificial Intelligence
Yourself) kit that came free with the MagPi magazine (issue 57). It uses the
Google Assistant to answer questions and perform actions, using IFTTT to
integrate with smart home accessories and other web services.

Not only does this build look fantastic, it’s also a great conversation starter
for any visitors who had a similar device during the eighties.

Also take a look at Martin’s 1970s Amazon Alexa phone[7] for more nostalgic
splendour.

Put it in a box

…and then I’ll put that box inside of another box, and then I’ll mail that box
to myself, and when it arrives…
[image 8: Raspberry pi home assistant]

A GIF. A harmless, little GIF…and proof of the comms team’s obsession with The
Emperor’s New Groove.

You don’t have to be fancy when it comes to housing your home assistant. And
often, especially if you’re working with the smaller people in your household,
the results of a simple homespun approach are just as delightful.

Here are Hannah and her dad Tom, explaining how they built a home assistant
together and fit it inside an old cigar box:

Raspberry Pi 3 Amazon Echo – The Alexa Kids Build![9]

My 7 year old daughter and I decided to play around with the Raspberry Pi and
build ourselves an Amazon Echo (Alexa). The video tells you about what we did
and the links below will take you to all the sites we used to get this up and
running.

Also see the Google AIY Projects Voice kit[10] — the cardboard box-est of home
assistant boxes.

Make your own home assistant

And now it’s your turn! I challenge you all (and also myself) to create a home
assistant using the Raspberry Pi. Whether you decide to fit Amazon Alexa inside
an old shoebox or Google Home inside your sister’s Barbie, I’d love to see what
you create using the free home assistant software available online.

Check out these other[11]home[12]assistants[13] for Raspberry Pi, and keep an
eye on our blog to see what I manage to create as part of the challenge.

Ten virtual house points for everyone who shares their build with us online,
either in the comments below or by tagging us on your social media account[14].

The post Marvellous retrofitted home assistants[15] appeared first on Raspberry
Pi[16].

Links:
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXWlnc-Qcwg (link)
[2]: https://circuitbeard.co.uk/2017/11/18/tomy-mr-money-google-aiy-assistant/ (link)
[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwHS7F6L13E (link)
[4]: https://howchoo.com/g/otewzwmwnzb/amazon-echo-furby-using-raspberry-pi-furlexa (link)
[5]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/google-pi-intercom-aiy-projects/ (link)
[6]: https://youtu.be/lNpuERqvEfM (link)
[7]: http://www.instructables.com/id/1970s-Raspberry-Pi-Amazon-AlexaPhone/ (link)
[8]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/app/uploads/2017/12/ezgif-4-307b937979.gif (image)
[9]: https://youtu.be/9ptax0mPT4o (link)
[10]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/aiy-projects-kit-pre-order/ (link)
[11]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/gladys-project-home-assistant/ (link)
[12]: https://openjarvis.com/ (link)
[13]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/meet-jasper-open-source-voice-computing/ (link)
[14]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/connecting-raspberry-pi-social/ (link)
[15]: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/retrofitted-home-assistants/ (link)
[16]: https://www.raspberrypi.org (link)

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Thread

Crossing digital assistants with retro toys RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2017-12-09 02:40 +0000
  Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Batchman <batchman@dosville.foo> - 2017-12-11 10:02 +1100
  Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> - 2017-12-11 04:33 +0000
    Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2017-12-11 02:12 -0400
      Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2017-12-11 10:33 +0000
        Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2017-12-11 09:15 -0800
          Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2017-12-11 21:34 +0100
            Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2017-12-11 14:02 -0800
              Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2017-12-12 10:07 +0100
        Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2017-12-11 15:35 -0400
          Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2017-12-11 19:49 +0000
            Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2017-12-11 21:28 -0400
              Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys RS Wood <rswood@therandymon.com> - 2017-12-11 22:33 -0500
            Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Johnny B Good <johnny-b-good@invalid.ntlworld.com> - 2017-12-12 15:39 +0000
              Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2017-12-13 02:07 -0400
        Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Oregonian Haruspex <no_email@invalid.invalid> - 2017-12-12 00:07 +0000
      Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2017-12-11 21:20 +0100
        Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2017-12-11 23:02 +0200
    Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2017-12-11 13:50 -0500
      Re: Crossing digital assistants with retro toys Johnny B Good <johnny-b-good@invalid.ntlworld.com> - 2017-12-12 15:44 +0000

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