Google Assistant SDK Turns Your Raspberry Pi 3 into Google Home

Google Home allows you to select music, control your home automation system and more with voice commands, but now you can do the same with a Raspberry Pi 3 as Google released a developer preview (alpha v1) of the Google Assistant API that works on Raspberry Pi 3, and other development boards running Debian or Ubuntu.
Functionalities are limited right now, with RPC API and Python sample code, but it only works with English language, and features such as timers & alarm, playing music, news, or podcasts, and precise location are not supported. Location is determined using your IP address only, and if you’re using some third party services / products such as Uber or Hue, you’ll need an actual Google Home device for initial setup.

Google has provided instructions to use Google Assistant SDK with Raspberry Pi 3 board. First you’ll need a USB microphone ($5.99 on Amazon), and speakers connected via USB or the 3.5 mm audio jack. After installing Raspbian on the board, you’ll need to configure a developer project and account settings, configure and test audio (with arecord/aplay), and finally install Python and the Assistant API sample:


Once this is done, authorize and run the sample:


Press Enter, ask something, and your Raspberry Pi 3 board should answer.

Since you just need audio and network working on the hardware, this should also work on other development boards, and Google has indeed provided instructions for other platforms too. Basically the same steps, but less detailed, except for the authorization part which seems a little more complicated.

Thanks to Harley for the tip.

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9 Comments
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Martin Revert
Martin Revert
7 years ago

Raspberry Pi 1 and 2 must be perfectly capable to do this also. I don’t know why they choose to just recommend Rpi 3.

Peter Scargill
7 years ago

So let me get this straight.. you need a Pi3, you can’t use timers & alarm, playing music, news, or podcasts, and precise location and if you want to do home control you have to have a Google Home device in the first place.

Seems to me like a simply attempt to home in on Amazon to me – a bit like Microsoft’s attempt with so called “Windows 10” to home in on the Raspberry Pi etc IOT market. Think I’ll give that a miss until they are actually offering something.

Harley
Harley
7 years ago

Home Assistant (HASS) community have many hints and tips https://community.home-assistant.io/t/a-raspberry-pi-turned-into-a-google-home-and-it-works/16692 Main issues seems to be the currect issue with this preview release does not come with a hot-word function (which means it requires a key-press to activate listening-mode) and you will need a good microphone array for it to hear you at a distance. Jabra 510 is example suggested a proof-of-concept, but there are of course less expensive microphone array development kits available out there. @Peter Scargill This is just an SDK (Software Development Kit) which is meant to help developers develop new products based on Google Assistant or integrate… Read more »

Drone
Drone
7 years ago

“…you’ll need an actual Google Home device for initial setup.” Why for crying out loud!!??

Prasanna
Prasanna
7 years ago

@Martin Revert
Probably because RPi 1 and 2 are in ARMv6 & v7. RPi uses ARMv8!

Eric
Eric
6 years ago

still i dont know how to change the languuauge

Alex
Alex
6 years ago

Ok, But…
The best project of IA is the open souce :

Mycroft is the world’s first open source assistant.

Mycroft runs anywhere – on a desktop computer, inside an automobile, 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.

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