Seeed Studio launched ReSpeaker Core board designed for voice interaction in 2016. The board was based on a Mediatek MT7688 MIPS WiSoC running OpenWrt, and came with a single built-in microphone, although a microphone array board with 7 microphones and 12 LEDs was also offered as option.
The company is now back with a more powerful update of the board – called ReSpeaker Core v2 – featuring Rockchip RK3229 quad core Cortex A7 processor, running Debian Linux, and with 6 on-board microphones. Beside WiFi connectivity, the board also adds Ethernet and Bluetooth 4.0, as well as a USB hot port compared to the previous version.
ReSpeaker Core v2 specifications:
- SoC – Rockchip RK3229 quad core Cortex A7 processor @ up to 1.5 GHz with Arm Mali-400MP2 GPU
- System Memory – 1GB DDR3 RAM
- Storage – 4GB eMMC flash, micro SD card slot
- Video Output – HDMI 2.0 (but drivers not available yet)
- Audio
- 6x Microphone Array with 5 meters detection range
- 8 channel ADCs for 6 microphone array and 2 loopback (hardware loopback)
- 3.5mm audio jack
- 2-pin JST connector for 8Ω speaker
- Connectivity – 10/100M Ethernet, WiFi 802.11b/g/n and BLE 4.0 (AP6212 module)
- USB – 1x micro USB OTG port, 2x USB host type A port
- Expansion – Grove socket for external I2C sensors, unpopulated headrr with 6x GPIOs, 3-pin UART header
- Misc – 12x programmable LEDs ring, power LED, 2x user LEDs
- Power Supply – 5V via micro USB port
- Dimensions – 100 x 96 x 18 mm
The kit ships with an SDK for speech algorithm with full documentation, a C++ SDK and Python wrapper, speech algorithms and features such as keyword wake-up, BF (Beam-Forming), DoA (Direction of arrival), NS(Noise suppression), AEC (Acoustic echo cancellation) and AGC (Automatic gain control). More details and instructions to get started with Amazon Alexa can be found in the Wiki.
ReSpeaker Core v2 board targets the development of smart speakers, intelligent voice assistant systems, voice recorders, voice conferencing system, meeting communicating equipment, voice interacting robot, car voice assistant and other applications relying on voice commands.
Seeed Studio will start taking (pre-)orders on March 19 for $99.
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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Maybe Seed can get us the source code for Rockchip’s Android Things implementation. It runs on the same RK3229 hardware.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxmFdmg7Cno
Pretty sure there is a good market for a $15 RK3229 based core Android Things module.
@Jon Smirl
It seems they don’t need the external DSP anymore for smart speakers, everything can be handled by the main processor now.
Looks like it is a dumb 8-channel ADC chip – an AC108
http://www.x-powers.com/en.php/Info/product_detail/article_id/41
From one of the pictures:
respeaker@v2:~$ arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: seeed8micvoicec [seeed-8mic-voicecard], device 0: 100b0000.i2s1-ac108-pcm0 ac108-pcm0-0 []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
That turns the 8 mics into 4 I2S channels.
Then there are several SDKs that can use those 8 channels without a DSP. Alexa, Baidu.
Android Things can, but they aren’t offering it. Kind of odd since Rockchip is promoting this chip for Android Things.
Anyone know a price for X-powers AC108? None of the chip vendors I use have it listed. It can’t be too much – should be under $1.
isn’t that quite a bit overpriced at 99?
Hi All,
I am the Product Manager of ReSpeaker.
For some questions I see here:
1. Android Things has been porting to RK3229, I am sure we can running it on ReSpeaker Core v2.0. I hope we can discuss with Google about this.
2. AC108 is an ADC chip.
3. We running the Speech Algorithm without DSP.
More information about Speech Algorithm and partners will public soon.
I’m also absolutely interested in an Android Things build for this. We’re building specialized custom voice assistant software based on AT and this looks like a great piece of hardware to replace our Raspberry Pi based product line. If you need help with the step to talk to Google about getting AT support, please let me know. Just ask for Eric at Pixplicity.
I ordered a ReSpeaker 2.0 which was supposed to ship on 4/4/18, it has not! Seedstudio say I will now get it in June, can you tell me why? Have I been conned by you?
Hey TJ, I’m Seth a Product Marketing Manager with Seeed. Can you toss me an email at [email protected] with the email you placed your order with?
For transparency’s sake: We hit a few issues on manufacturing and the supply chain both. The device is coming, however. June should be the worst case scenario for shipping. We currently expect to have the components by the end of this month (April) and begin manufacturing in early May.
@Xiaobo
Where is the source code for the Android Things port to RK3229? I believe if you just compile your driver into that source ReSpeaker will work. Android things already knows how to work with multiple mics presented via ALSA.