ReSpeaker WiFi IoT Board is Designed for Voice Interaction (Crowdfunding)

More and more devices are supporting voice interaction nowadays from your smartphone to devices like Amazon Echo, but so far, I had not seen development boards specifically designed for that purpose, and that’s exactly what Seeed Studio ReSpeaker board does by combining audio capabilities, WiFi connectivity, and I/O headers.

ReSpeaker Core board specifications:

• WiFi Module – Acsip AI7688 Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n module based on Mediatek MT7688 MIPS SoC
• Storage – micro SD card slot
• USB – 1x micro USB port for programming and power
• Audio – 3.5mm AUX port, WM8960 audio codec, 2-pin header for external speakers
• Expansion – 2x 8-pin expansion headers for I2C, GPIO and USB 2.0 host connected to MT7688, built-in microphone.
• MCU – Atmel ATMega32U4 @ 16 MHz
• Misc – 12x RGB LEDs, 8x touch sensors, 3 push buttons
• Power Supply – 5V DC
• Dimensions – 70mm diameter
• Weight – 70 grams

The board runs OpenWrt, and uses Text-to-Speech and Speech-to-Text capabilities from Bing and Google with the company having focused on the English language so far, but you should be able to add other languages fairly easily.  A “detailed and easy-to-use” Python SDK is provided to developers, and other programming languages/options such as C/C++, Arduino, JavaScript and Lua are also available. You can find more details and source code on the Wiki.

Beside the core board, the company also offers two add-on boards such as Grove Extension board to add I2C, UART, digital or analog Grove modules to your projects, and a Microphone array board with 7 microphones and 12 LEDs.

Finally if you want something hackable, but looking more like a consumer product, Seeed Studio has partnered with Meow King Audio Electronic to design Meow King Drive Unit with a 5W speaker and taking ReSpeaker Core and Mic Array boards. ReSpeaker Core is also compatible with ESP8266 based Wio Link, and its graphical setup interface.

Some fun projects include a smart speaker answering your questions, weather forecasting decorative cloud, voice controlled meeting scheduler, talking “I’m thirsty” flower, smart photo album showing photos from a given date or event, and more…

The project has launched on Kickstarter a few hours ago, and already raised $37,000 out of its $40,000 funding target. ReSpeaker Core with a 8GB micro SD card requires a $39 pledge (early bird, $59 normal), which goes up to $89 with ReSpeaker Mic Array, and $139 with the complete Meow King Drive unit kit with all necessary boards. There are many other rewards to choose from with various sensors, bundles, etc… Shipping is not included, and adds $10 for standard shipping (Tip: select Hong Kong irregardless of your country), or $20 for DHL shipping according to their latest update. Delivery is scheduled for November 2016, except for the Meow King kit  (January 2017).

PS: I have an early sample of ReSpeaker Core board, and I’ll post a review/guide in a few days.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.

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