Picroft - a special version of Mycroft open source Artificial Intelligence for Raspberry Pi 3

There are many AI (Artificial Intelligence) assistants available like: Siri (Apple), Google Assistant, Amazon Echo and Cortana (Microsoft) which all are proprietary. The only open source AI-tool out there on the Internet is Mycroft. I wanted to give it a go.

Off I went and downloaded Picroft - a ready-made image - for Raspberry Pi 3, burned it on a microSD-card and booted Raspi3. Once Picroft was connected to the Internet a six character code was printed on screen. In order to make AI work Raspi3 needs to be paired at https://home.mycroft.ai using the code. After that I started to speak to Mycroft.

My equipment was not that up-to-date. It seems not all devices work. At first I tried a USB headset from Logitech with no luck. I had to use an old Microsoft web camera as microphone and a headset as speakers. After saying "Hey, Mycroft" Mycroft started listening and answering to me.

How was the conversation with Mycroft? Well, very basic I'd say. For example when asking:"Where is London?", Mycroft had no idea. The president of the USA was known by Mycroft. I wanted to teach Mycroft but I guess it's not allowed.

After a quick test all I can say is Mycroft works almost out-of-the-box on Raspi3. That's good news. I hope Mycroft will soon learn where London is somewhere on this planet. And it will - eventually.

PS Ah, you can install skills via command line and github! That way you can make Mycroft do more tricks. See skills that are available foe downloading (requires a free github account) : https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-skills

Picroft - a special version of

Mycroft runs on Raspberry Pi 3

An old web cam as a microphone

Head set as speakers

The UI of Mycroft on Raspberry Pi 3

Mycroft doesn't know where London is...