Mycroft Picroft

11/10/2019

After our trip back to the UK and finding Amazon Echo’s and Google Home devices ubiquitous my wife felt a need to have one, and darling that I am I bought her an Amazon Echo for her birthday… it has been bugging me ever since. I’ve set up a Pi-Hole on our home network to prevent most adverts being shown… but I still know it’s listening :p

So I was really stoked today to find out about the open source AI speaker system the mycroft:

  • AI For Everyone
    • Mycroft is the world’s first open source voice assistant.
    • Our software runs on many platforms—on desktop, our Mycroft Mark 1, or on a Raspberry Pi. This is open source software which can be freely remixed, extended, and improved. Mycroft may be used in anything from a science project to an enterprise software application.
  • AI FOR EVERYONE
    • Mycroft is the world’s first open source voice assistant. It can run anywhere – on a desktop computer, inside an automobile, it even runs on a Raspberry Pi. It is open so it can be remixed, extended, improved. It can be used in anything from a science project to an enterprise software application.
  • What Can Mycroft do?
    • I can help you get stuff done, seamlessly, without looking for the right button to push. Just use your voice to tell me how I can assist you.
  • List of skills here
  • Why open source?
    • We believe the future of AI should be open, not a cryptic black box only few understand and have control over.
    • Building this new technology together, collaborating, sharing ideas and building on top of each other – that’s how we see it.

mycroft 1 - sold out
The Mycroft i has been available for a couple of years, although I was sad to find it has sold out

Mycroft ii - Reserve your copy for $1
The Mycroft ii is the more sophisticated next gen piece of kit, although it’s not available yet… but you can reserve your copy for a $1 deposit

So the bad news is that these 2 pre-made options are off the table, the great news is that there’s a Raspberry Pi version that you can hack together yourself

  • Picroft is a ready-made way to run Mycroft on a Raspberry Pi 3 or Raspberry Pi 3B+ and is provided as a disk image that you can burn to a Micro SD card.

So now I’m gathering the components to put a Picroft together, PlayStation Eye has been ordered, and I’m installing the software ready to play.

If I can sell the benefits to my wife I might be able to get her to give away the intrusive Amazon Dot, if not I’ve a base to build a homemade AI bot 🙂