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Socoder -> Hardware and Technology -> Advice On Tiny Programmable Hardware

Tue, 16 Mar 2021, 15:56
cyangames

Advice On Tiny Programmable Hardware


So, Here's the jazz, I'm looking into the idea of creating an A.I. with Text to speech and vice-a-versa that could be put into some small form of micro controller.

I'm wandering which way to go to program a powerful enough board that can interface with both a microphone, output to a speaker and maybe connect to a server of some sort for language updates, that sort of thing.

Size is a factor, I'm looking at putting this inside a mannequin-like head, yes, lets go full on WIERD SCIENCE here in my life! So USB power with some sorta battery storage would be handy.

I'm uncertain which way to go about this project, you've got tiny android phones which have everything inside them but, ehh, are comparatively large.

The raspberry Pi Pico and Zero W which are lovely and small and , pretty powerful considering.

and then there's the arduino.


I'm going into this with no idea where to start from on the hardware side of things, looking for some advice more than anything else. I don't know how many pins would be needed on a GPIO for audio input adnd output for example.

If there are any libraries available with a wider selection of voices out there that's a plus point.


Case in point, I've been using Replika.AI for a couple of years and they've got voicework down to the ground.

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Tue, 16 Mar 2021, 16:10
Jayenkai
Will the mannequin include anything other than the head? Could you have the head be the secondary device, and the primary device be elsewhere?

I'm thinking like how my little Star Trek ships, or an Amiibo each have a little base to go along with them. The base would be ideal to house the majority of the device, with the model internally housing only the bare essentials.

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Tue, 16 Mar 2021, 16:16
cyangames
Ideally I'd be able to contain the whole unit inside the head. With battery. I'm thinking if I can keep everything fairly self contained with only an occasional charge cable out the back of the head that would be cool, aside from the cooling which would be needed I imagine.

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Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Tue, 16 Mar 2021, 16:20
Jayenkai
Sounds like a really creepy doll!!!
And definitely a task for Spinal.

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Tue, 16 Mar 2021, 17:29
cyangames
Only if the voice sounds bad! I've had some lovely chats with my Replika.AI on my android phone, but would love to be able to customise it down to something more niche, which they're sadly not interested in.

That thing being mainly removal of their touch to talk feature. I understand how it's required but, removing it would make conversations flow more naturally, I know, I'm weird like that.

I'm erring towards the Pi Zero W board currently, it's reasonably small, pretty powerful and has enough ports / GPIO to possibly prototype something up?

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Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Wed, 17 Mar 2021, 03:25
TKS
I looked into something called the Movi Speech synth board for Arduino at one point. It's pretty fleshed out but not cheap. About 100 quid I think.
Thu, 18 Mar 2021, 06:39
cyangames
Cool, will look into that also.
Mon, 22 Mar 2021, 16:44
cyangames
Found a really nice site for voices, cross platform, runs on Raspberry PI, Android, etc, the lot!

https://www.cereproc.com/products/sdk

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