This was started more as an art project rather than an attempt to create a robust production-ready application. I wanted to run Alexa on my Gakken WorldEye projector (a spherical display), because I like all retro-futuristic things.
First of all, check out the final result:
And here's the same app running on a Mac desktop:
To write less code, I decided to do the following:
- Use the console sample app from AVS Device SDK with no modifications. I just needed to compile it with wake word detection from KITT.AI / Snowboy as per official instructions.
- Write a wrapper server app that would in turn run that sample app, parse its console output and send events via websocket to an HTML page that would render the UI.
- To also make the app work on a desktop, write a helper Electron app to initialize the chromeless window with a custom round shape and always-on-top behavior.
This repository contains a bunch of components, each residing in its own directory. Check out READMEs in each directory for further setup instructions:
- 1-sample-app — build the AVS Device SDK and sample app
- 2-alexa-server/bin — configure a proxy script to run the sample app
- 2-alexa-server — build and run the server
- 3-electron-app — run the Electron app
- 4-bluetooth-fix — [optionally] fix audio issues with Bluetooth speakers
If you do something fun with this code, share with the world! Feel free to reach out to me on Gitter.