{"id":54218,"date":"2016-03-28T09:20:21","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T08:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=54218"},"modified":"2016-03-27T18:23:52","modified_gmt":"2016-03-27T17:23:52","slug":"amazons-official-diy-guide-to-making-an-alexa-enabled-raspberry-pi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/2016\/03\/amazons-official-diy-guide-to-making-an-alexa-enabled-raspberry-pi\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon&#8217;s official DIY guide to making an Alexa-enabled Raspberry Pi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"graf--p\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/rpi-5-1.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-54220\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-54220 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/rpi-5-1-e1459099414945.jpg\" alt=\"rpi-5\" width=\"816\" height=\"612\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"graf--p\">Amazon\u2019s vocal assistant Alexa is the cornerstone of its recent releases, popping up in the Echo speaker, the Echo Dot and the Tap\u2026 but none of these devices have yet come to the UK. It\u2019s also coming to the Triby, as we reported earlier, but that device hasn\u2019t been updated with Alexa support yet. What\u2019s a Brit to do? If you have some basic programming skills, then one answer could be just to build your own Alexa-powered speaker\u2026 and Amazon have revealed exactly how to do it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"graf--p\">The heart of the system will be the cheap Raspberry Pi 2 or 3 (<a class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\" href=\"https:\/\/thepihut.com\/products\/raspberry-pi-3-model-b\" data-href=\"https:\/\/thepihut.com\/products\/raspberry-pi-3-model-b\">available for \u00a330<\/a>), plus a few components you\u2019re likely to have lying around: a micro SD card to install an OS for the Pi, an ethernet cable, a USB microphone, a speaker\u2026 and some stuff to set up the Pi initially, including a USB keyboard and mouse, and an external HDMI monitor or TV. You can also pick up a USB wireless adapter, if you\u2019d prefer to set up your Alexa-powered speaker somewhere that an ethernet cable won\u2019t reach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"graf--p\">Once you\u2019ve got your things together, getting things set up is pretty straightforward (if you have some prior experience running things in a shell and some basic programming knowledge). You can <a class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\" href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/amzn\/alexa-avs-raspberry-pi\" data-href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/amzn\/alexa-avs-raspberry-pi\">follow the instructions here<\/a>, which are fairly long but simple to understand. You\u2019ll install an OS on your Pi, allow remote access via SSH, install some programs, sign up for an Amazon Voice Services developer account, sign some certificates, and then you should be ready to go!<\/p>\n<p class=\"graf--p\">There are some restrictions with this compared to a normal Alexa device?\u2014?you have to press a button every time you want Alexa to listen to you, which cuts into its utility\u2026 but overall, it\u2019s a pretty convincing demo of how easy it is to add Alexa to a device.<\/p>\n<p class=\"graf--p\">Let us know if you try it yourself, and have fun with your Pi!<\/p>\n\n<!-- WP QUADS Content Ad Plugin v. 2.0.27.4 -->\n<div class=\"quads-location quads-ad1\" id=\"quads-ad1\" style=\"float:none;margin:0px 0 0px 0;text-align:center;\">\n<div id=\"bari-widget\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amazon\u2019s vocal assistant Alexa is the cornerstone of its recent releases, popping up in the Echo speaker, the Echo Dot and the Tap\u2026 but none of these devices have yet come to the UK. It\u2019s also coming to the Triby, as we reported earlier, but that device hasn\u2019t been updated with Alexa support yet. What\u2019s a Brit to do? If you have some basic programming skills, then one answer could be just to build your own Alexa-powered speaker\u2026 and Amazon have revealed exactly how to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":54219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[228],"tags":[8488,7345,8528,8529,8576,8530],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54218"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54221,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54218\/revisions\/54221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobilefun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}