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jeikabu

Posted on • Originally published at rendered-obsolete.github.io on

Home Assistant Voice Recognition with Snips

#smarthome #iot #homeautomation #hass

After the initial install of Home Assistant, I’ve been eager to get some basic voice recognition working. One of my early goals was for it to be “offline”; meaning, not use Amazon or Google.

Hardware

I was originally working with the HD-3000, but wasn’t very happy with the recording quality. I’m still experimenting with the ReSpeaker, but it definitely seems better. In any case, configuration was pretty similar- and likely the same goes for any other USB microphone.

Basic Alsa Audio

First, we need to get audio working; both a microphone and speaker.

Good, concise documentation that explains what’s going on with Raspberry Pi/Debian audio has eluded me thus far. Most of this is extracted from random forum posts, Stack Overflow, and a smattering of trial and error.

You can record from a microphone with arecord. Abridged arecord --help output:

Usage: arecord [OPTION]... [FILE]...

-l, --list-devices list all soundcards and digital audio devices
-L, --list-pcms list device names
-D, --device=NAME select PCM by name
-t, --file-type TYPE file type (voc, wav, raw or au)
-c, --channels=# channels
-f, --format=FORMAT sample format (case insensitive)
-r, --rate=# sample rate
-d, --duration=# interrupt after # seconds
-v, --verbose show PCM structure and setup (accumulative)
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List various devices. arecord -l:

****List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices****
card 1: Dummy [Dummy], device 0: Dummy PCM [Dummy PCM]
  <SNIP>
card 2: ArrayUAC10 [ReSpeaker 4 Mic Array (UAC1.0)], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
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Then, arecord -L:

null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)
default
<Bunch of CARD=Dummy>
sysdefault:CARD=ArrayUAC10
    ReSpeaker 4 Mic Array (UAC1.0), USB Audio
    Default Audio Device
<Bunch of CARD=ArrayUAC10 speakers/output>
dmix:CARD=ArrayUAC10,DEV=0
    ReSpeaker 4 Mic Array (UAC1.0), USB Audio
    Direct sample mixing device
dsnoop:CARD=ArrayUAC10,DEV=0
    ReSpeaker 4 Mic Array (UAC1.0), USB Audio
    Direct sample snooping device
hw:CARD=ArrayUAC10,DEV=0
    ReSpeaker 4 Mic Array (UAC1.0), USB Audio
    Direct hardware device without any conversions
plughw:CARD=ArrayUAC10,DEV=0
    ReSpeaker 4 Mic Array (UAC1.0), USB Audio
    Hardware device with all software conversions
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To record using the ReSpeaker (card ArrayUAC10):

# `-d 3` records for 3 seconds (otherwise `Ctrl+c` to stop)
# `-D` sets the PCM device
arecord -d 3 -D hw:ArrayUAC10 tmp_file.wav
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It may output:

Recording WAVE 'tmp_file.wav' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 8000 Hz, Mono
arecord: set_params:1299: Sample format non available
Available formats:
- S16_LE
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Like arecord -L says, hw: is “Direct hardware device without any conversions”. We either need to record in a supported format, or use plughw: (“Hardware device with all software conversions”). Either of these work:

arecord -d 3 -D plughw:ArrayUAC10 tmp_file.wav
# `-f S16_LE` signed 16-bit little endian
# `-c 6` six channels
# `-r 16000` 16kHz
arecord -f S16_LE -c 6 -r 16000 -d 3 -D hw:ArrayUAC10 tmp_file.wav
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You can get a list of supported parameters with arecord --dump-hw-params -D hw:ArrayUAC10:

HW Params of device "hw:ArrayUAC10":
--------------------
ACCESS: MMAP_INTERLEAVED RW_INTERLEAVED
FORMAT: S16_LE
SUBFORMAT: STD
SAMPLE_BITS: 16
FRAME_BITS: 96
CHANNELS: 6
RATE: 16000
PERIOD_TIME: [1000 2730625]
PERIOD_SIZE: [16 43690]
PERIOD_BYTES: [192 524280]
PERIODS: [2 1024]
BUFFER_TIME: [2000 5461313)
BUFFER_SIZE: [32 87381]
BUFFER_BYTES: [384 1048572]
TICK_TIME: ALL
--------------------
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In online resources you’ll see values similar to hw:2,0, which means “card 2, device 0”. Looking at the arecord -l output, it’s the same as hw:ArrayUAC10 since the ReSpeaker only has the one device.

You can play the recorded audio with aplay. Looking at the output from aplay -L, I can:

aplay -D plughw:SoundLink tmp_file.wav
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There’s at least two configuration files that can affect behaviour of arecord/aplay:

  • /etc/asound.conf
  • ~/.asoundrc

For example, after changing the default sound card via Audio Device Settings my ~/.asoundrc contains:

pcm.!default {
    type hw
    card 2
}

ctl.!default {
    type hw
    card 2
}
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If I check aplay -l, “card 2” is my Bose Revolve SoundLink USB speaker:

****List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices****
card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 0: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA]
  <SNIP>
card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 1: bcm2835 IEC958/HDMI [bcm2835 IEC958/HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 2: bcm2835 IEC958/HDMI1 [bcm2835 IEC958/HDMI1]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Dummy [Dummy], device 0: Dummy PCM [Dummy PCM]
  <SNIP>
card 2: SoundLink [Bose Revolve SoundLink], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
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Voice Recognition with Snips

At first I was thrilled to find Snips:

But after initial (successful) experimentation, there’s a few largish problems:

Oops. Hopefully it will return in another form.

Install

Following the manual setup instructions:

sudo apt-get install -y dirmngr
sudo bash -c 'echo "deb https://raspbian.snips.ai/$(lsb_release -cs) stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/snips.list'
sudo apt-key adv --fetch-keys https://raspbian.snips.ai/531DD1A7B702B14D.pub
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y snips-platform-voice
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Create an Assistant

An “assistant” defines what voice commands Snips handles. Need to create an assistant via the (soon to be shutdown) Snips Console:

  1. Click Add an App
  2. Click + of apps of interest
  3. Click Add Apps button
  4. Wait for training to complete
  5. Click Deploy Assistant button
  6. Download and install manually

Install the assistant:

pc> scp ~/Downloads/assistant_proj_XYZ.zip pi@pi3.local:~
pc> ssh pi@pi3.local

sudo rm -rf /usr/share/snips/assistant/
sudo unzip ~/assistant_proj_1mE9N2ylKWa.zip -d /usr/share/snips/
sudo systemctl restart 'snips-*'
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At this point Snips should be working. If triggered with the wake word (default is hey snips), it should send “intents” over MQTT.

Verification/Troubleshooting

Check all services are green and active (running):

sudo systemctl status 'snips-*'
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Initially, the Snips Audio Server was unable to start. Check output in syslog:

tail -f /var/log/syslog
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It was unable to open the “default” audio capture device:

Dec 5 07:22:25 pi3 snips-audio-server[28216]: INFO:snips_audio_alsa::capture: Starting ALSA capture on device "default"
Dec 5 07:22:25 pi3 snips-audio-server[28216]: ERROR:snips_audio_server : an error occured in the audio pipeline: Error("snd_pcm_open", Sys(ENOENT))
Dec 5 07:22:25 pi3 snips-audio-server[28216]: -> caused by: ALSA function 'snd_pcm_open' failed with error 'ENOENT: No such file or directory'
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We could set the “default” device. Or, /etc/snips.toml contains platform configuration where we can specify values from above:

[snips-audio-server]
alsa_capture = "plughw:ArrayUAC10"
alsa_playback = "plughw:SoundLink"
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snips-watch shows a lot of information:

sudo apt-get install -y snips-watch
snips-watch -vv
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I installed the weather app. So, if I say, “hey snips, what’s the weather?” snips-watch should output:

[15:00:52] [Hotword] detected on site default, for model hey_snips
[15:00:52] [Asr] was asked to stop listening on site default
[15:00:52] [Hotword] was asked to toggle itself 'off' on site default
[15:00:52] [Dialogue] session with id 'e39a4367-e167-467c-912a-e047f49bea7a' was started on site default
[15:00:52] [Asr] was asked to listen on site default
[15:00:54] [Asr] captured text "what 's the weather" in 2.0s with tokens: what[0.950], 's[0.950], the[1.000], weather[1.000]
[15:00:54] [Asr] was asked to stop listening on site default
[15:00:55] [Nlu] was asked to parse input "what 's the weather"
[15:00:55] [Nlu] detected intent searchWeatherForecast with confidence score 1.000 for input "what 's the weather"
[15:00:55] [Dialogue] New intent detected searchWeatherForecast with confidence 1.000
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Instead of snips-watch, you can probably use any MQTT client:

sudo apt-get install -y mosquitto-clients
# Subscribe to all topics
mosquitto_sub -p 1883 -t "#"
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Home Assistant and Snips

Both Home Assistant and Snips are designed to use MQTT. You can either:

Since we did everything from scratch, Hass doesn’t have a broker. So, we can just point Hass at the one that got installed with Snips. In configuration.yaml:

# Enable snips (VERY IMPORTANT)
snips:
# Setup MQTT
mqtt:
  broker: 127.0.0.1
  port: 1883
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Restart Hass and from the UI pick ☰ > Developer Tools > MQTT > Listen to a Topic and enter hermes/intent/# (all Snips intents) then Start Listening.

Now say “hey snips, what’s the weather” and you should see a message for searchWeatherForecast intent pop up.

To test TTS, in Developer Tools > Services try snips.say service with data text: hello and Call Service. You should be greeted by a robo-voice from the speaker.

Let’s try a basic intent script triggered on the intent. In configuration.yaml:

intent_script:
  searchWeatherForecast:
    speech:
      text: 'hello intent'
    action:
      - service: system_log.write
        data_template:
          message: 'Hello intent'
          level: warning
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Now when hass receives the intent, the TTS engine will say “hello intent” and output something to Developer > Logs.

The End?

It’s a total bummer the future of Snips is uncertain because it was perfect for voice controlled home automation. But, that would be why it was acquired.

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