Meet Mycroft: An Open Source Virtual Assistant

[Abarbarian]

Mycroft Mark II: The Open Source Answer to Amazon Echo and Google Home That Doesn’t Spy on You

Brief: If you want a smart speaker cum virtual assistant like Amazon Echo and Google Home that doesn’t spy on you, Mycroft Mark II is what you are looking for. The open source device is open for pre-order via its crowdfunding campaign.

This is the era of virtual home assistants. From setting alarms to get weather information, from playing your favorite music to play Netflix for you, these virtual assistants do it all. You just need to call their name and ask them the questions. You don’t even have to be nice to them, not that it hurts. All you need is a device that uses these virtual assistants.

The Kickstarter campaign,

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...t-mark-ii-the-open-voice-assistant?ref=7cauwu

The current Indiegogo campaign,

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mycroft-mark-ii-the-open-voice-assistant#/

For those with a 3D printer,

Mark II Dev Kit – DIY
Are you a hacker or maker that loves to put things together? Choose this reward and get the chance to build it yourself! This reward comes with the PCBs, LCD, speakers and necessary cables, but no housing. This reward will ships with documentation, CAD files for 3D printing, and an SD card fully loaded with everything you need!

https://mycroft.ai/

The Mycroft home page contains more information,

Install on a Desktop, buy a Mycroft Mark 1, or build with a Raspberry Pi.
See what potential open source AI has to offer!

A list of current "SKILLS" that Mycroft can do.

https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-skills/blob/master/README.md#community-contributed-skill-list

I like the sound of Mycroft. Even at this early stage it looks to have some neat and useful skills.

 

[Ian]

I've been meaning to try this for quite some time, as it works with a lot of the home automation stuff we've got in the house. I'd really like a completely self-hosted voice assistant (i.e. no external API calls), and I think that Mycroft can do this with a bit of tweaking. I'll have a read up, and if it's do-able I'll try it and report back!

 

[Abarbarian]

I've been meaning to try this for quite some time, as it works with a lot of the home automation stuff we've got in the house. I'd really like a completely self-hosted voice assistant (i.e. no external API calls), and I think that Mycroft can do this with a bit of tweaking. I'll have a read up, and if it's do-able I'll try it and report back!

Yeah a self hosted non internet connected assistant would be pretty neat. Not sure if Mycroft can do that even with tweaking as you have to pair a device with mycroft.home which is on one of their servers. They say that the it is a open source project but somewhere in the documentation, I should have noted where, I think I read that part of the software source details have not been released.
If you figure out a way to do a home brew be sure to let us know.

 

[Abraham Andres Luna]

I would like to buy one when I finally move into a home.