Hi,
I am shopping around for a voice assistant and TTS for my HASS.IO pi (running on rasbian lite). I was wondering if it is worth looking at snips ai, or should i just go with Echo dot? I prefer not being reliant on internet based services but cost wise it will probably be cheaper and easier just to get a echo dot (I will need a mic and decent speakers for the pi)…
Indeed, the echo dot is probably the cheaper (and more important, less time consuming) solution. However, I love snips and the hardware is not expensive at all. At my Rpi3B+ setup with hassbian, I use a ps3 eye microphone (~$10, I guess) and some low cost usb speakers (~$15).
I would like to go with snips as I am trying to keep most of the services I use local only - from what I can see Snips does do this. Can you control all the entities in HA with snips? Are you using the add-on in HASSIO or have it installed on hassbian/raspbian?.
“Can you control all the entities in HA with snips?”
you can control everything you want, as long as you teach the assistant what you want to control and provide the corresponding intent scripts.
“Are you using the add-on in HASSIO or have it installed on hassbian/raspbian?.”
I don’t use HASSIO. I installed it using SAM as it is descriped on the snips.ai installation instruction page or in the snips-components documentation.
I got snips up and running and like what I see so far. Just having issues with the mic (PS3 Eye). is the Respeaker 2 or 4 mic arrays any better? Does setting up satellite snips in the same room help with picking you up whilst the tv/music is on?
What kind of issues do you have with the mic?
I don’t know if the respeaker are better because I have not tried them yet.
It does not pick up if there is ambient noise - have to almost scream at snips before it hears me…
You mean ambient noise like a TV or music? I have not tried that yet because my snips is in the hallway, where it is comparably quiet. However, I doubt that you get much better results from other mics, although devices with more mics included and some type of beam forming may be advantageous.
Another possibility may be to play around with the hotword sensitivity or the software microphone amplification. Are you satisfied with the performance without ambient noise being present?
I will see if changing sensitivity helps.
I am planning on having a couple of snips around the apartment.
Main unit (pi3) will most likely be mounted close to the kitchen, then satellite snips using pi 0 w in the bedrooms and in the lounge (Current main unit is in the lounge, but once the tv is on, or music is playing it is almost of no use…)