Free Mycroft Ai Google Home vs Alexa

Everyone must be familiar with the magic of Google Home vs Alexa. What if we can use the same features with Mycroft Ai absolutely free?

Google Home vs Alexa is free for their own hardware platform but for others are paid.

Here Mycroft ai is a free and open-source platform that allows us to enjoy all the features of Google Home vs Alexa on any hardware platform.

you can customize it for your own projects. Even you can set microft ai as a smart home device like Google Home vs Alexa.

Why use Mycroft Ai instead of google home vs alexa ?

There are the following advantages to use Mycroft Ai over google home vs Alexa.

Hardware choice of your own

Mycroft Ai supports various hardware and software platforms like raspberry pi, Android, and Linux devices.

On the other hand, google home vs Alexa can be used on their own hardware platform for free.

If you deploy on like raspberry pi it is not free.

Open source

It means the code can be customized as needed, copied, and can be redistributed.

Also can add new skills without any restrictions for custom voice assistance.

Privacy

Mycroft Ai only record commands only with your permission. If you wish it won’t record. It uses an opt-in privacy policy.

If you want to contribute to the development then your voice will be recorded as anonymous.

Lightweight

The application is lightweight to run small devices like the raspberry pi. It is a perfect platform for starting low-cost projects.

Community support

Mycroft Ai have vast community and forum support.

Chat – https://chat.mycroft.ai

Forum – https://community.mycroft.ai

Can Google Home vs Alexa run on Raspberry Pi?

Sure lot’s of support available for setup Alexa or google home over raspberry pi too.

Here step by step guide for setup google home vs Alexa on raspberry pi.

Link for Alexa:

Set Up Raspberry Pi | Alexa Voice Service – Amazon Developer

Link For Google Home:

Introduction to the Google Assistant Library | Google Assistant …

Required setup for Mycoft Ai over Raspberry Pi

For basic setup for raspberry Pi projects follow: What is Raspberry Pi setup guide.

Raspberry Pi 4, 3B+, and 3B supported well. The rest of the required things are:

If you have following things will be added advantage

Same setup will also be applicable for google home vs Alexa.

Procedure for Mycroft Ai setup

Following video will guide you step-by-step guide for installation.

Mycroft is specifically packaged to run on a Raspberry Pi 3 or 3B+.

It is built on top of the official Raspbian Stretch Lite and is available as a disk image ready to be burned to a Micro SD card.

Firstly go to picroft page and click on Picroft stable disk image quick link.

Download Picroft_Buster-Keaton_2020-01-10.zip (2.6G) file from google drive path.

Unzip iso file and burn iso image on sd card with balena etcher.

In case using a wi-fi network need to connect USB keyboard and HDMI monitor or TV for configuring wi-fi.

Else can use an ethernet cable to access SSH directly. Need to configure the Wi-Fi network manually in wpa_supplicant.conf file.

Make sure your wi-fi is not 5GHz band because Raspberry pi never supports it. It supports the 2.4GHz band.

You can use HDMI TV or monitor audio output otherwise make a connection of speaker with 3.5mm jack. As shown in the following picture.

Here I’m using an HDMI monitor, USB keyboard, USB webcam mic, 3.5 mm jack speaker, Ethernet connection for internet, and access via ssh.

You can check the output on HDMI tv or monitor otherwise on your computer via ssh.

Verify raspberry pi setup once again and power on.

After sometime option will ask for a guided setup or command line setup. Here I choose guided setup.

If the internet lan connector is not present then it will ask to setup a wi-fi connection.

Select the first option if you are in the US otherwise select the third option to edit the wpa_supplicant.conf file so that you can edit country code accordingly.

Wait until setup and configuration going to finish. In between, it may restart many times.

Again Hardware Setup menu will come up.

How do you want Mycroft to output audio:

1. Speakers via 3.5mm output (aka ‘audio jack’ or ‘headphone jack’)
2. HDMI audio (e.g. a TV or monitor with built-in speakers)
3. USB audio (e.g. a USB soundcard or USB mic/speaker combo)
4. Google AIY Voice HAT and microphone board (Voice Kit v1)

Select option with respect to your output device and proceed.

The next menu is for tests and adjusts the volume of an output device.

Test and adjust the volume level as desire. Need to reboot if not connected before.

The final step is microphone configuration. As voice assistance, Mycroft needs to access a microphone to operate.

Please ensure your microphone is connected and select from the following list of microphones:

1. PlayStation Eye (USB)
2. Blue Snoball ICE (USB)
3. Google AIY Voice HAT and microphone board (Voice Kit v1)
4. Matrix Voice HAT.
5. Other (unsupported — good luck!)

Here I’m using a webcam microphone which is working fine for me and configured without any issue.

Setup will guide you to test microphone as well.

At the end of setup, an option will come up for a login id and password.

If you wish you can keep the default raspberry id and password or can change from here.

Create Mycroft Ai Account and pairing

Now all set and ready to roll. just enter command mycroft-cli-client and Mycroft console will display.

After sometime will speak six letters for pairing device also will show on console. Now time has come to configure device.

On your computer browser go to the Mycroft Ai website and create an account.

Click on the right top menu and select devices. On the top of the page, click add device.

Add six lattes got from the console for pairing devices from a server and provide a unique name for your device.

Fill in the rest local information. Select voice and wake word of your choice. Save all the settings.

Basic Commands and Skills

Now the device is ready to take command and able to reply or react to voice commands.

Only need to call wake word followed by the command.

For example: ” Hey Microft tell me the news”,” Hey Mycroft what is time” etc.

Again click on the top-right menu of the Mycroft Ai account and select skills. Here you can see all the list of default skills.

From here you can configure skills and can install new skills. Although this can be done by voice command also.

List of default skills:

• Audio Recorder
• Date and Time
• Donald Dump
• Wikipedia
• Weather
• Stock Prices
• Installer
• Jokes
• Latest news
• Movie Master
• Naptime
• Fairytales
• Playback Control
• Query
• Set alarms
• Set reminders
• Singing
• Speak
• Spelling
• Pokemon
• Telegram
• Wikipedia
• Spotify

Many more skills can be installed on Mycroft Ai, even if you wish you can design custom skills for your own for Mycroft Ai assistance.

No doubt we can control gadgets/hardware with a voice command using gpio. At last but not least we can embed our home automation with voice commands.

For design own customize personal voice assistance free Mycroft Ai is a good option as compared to google home vs Alexa.