I'm looking for advice and ideas for a portable, personal assistant based off of a raspberry pi. I want something small enough that I can put it in a backpack or strap to my forearm.
The requirements:
Small and light (relatively).
Last 8 - 12 hours on battery.
Link with a blue tooth headset.
Voice recognition. Device will need to be almost entirely controlled just though voice.
Store and organize (local to the device) task lists, calendar events, and alert me of timed reminders.
I'd also like to entertain the idea of a small screen, but I doubt this would be realistic because of the drain on battery life.
I don't know if there is someone on the Internet who has already done this or something similar. At this point I'm just trying to get ideas on how to build this. Mostly as far as software is concerned. I've never really made a project like this before, so any input would be appreciated.
Thanks, Wyatt
Pi Supply has some E-ink displays that wouldn't use much energy and might be a good option. I think there might be other places like Aliexpress with similar displays. A small OLED display would also be pretty light on power draw.
Other than installing something like Alexa or whatever the Google assistant is (I think both of those have been used on a Pi before) I really don't know what else is out there for voice commands. I'm personally really against talking to inanimate objects (swearing is OK, though), especially out in public, but I'm quirky like that. A search of 'Pi voice assistant' brings up a bunch of stuff, that would be a good place to start to look for software and tutorials.
If you are looking for a smaller footprint than a Pi3, but more performance than a Zero W, then you could check out other boards like Orange Pi and FriendlyElec (FriendlyArm). The Allwinner H3 and H5 powered boards have separate USB bus lanes, vs the Pi's using 1 for all USB ports + ethernet (wifi/Bluetooth too?). That might be something to consider depending on how many devices you need to use via USB vs connecting things through the GPIO pins.
My understanding with some of the 'Pi like' boards is that Armbian tends to use more conservative settings for CPU speed and voltage, which would be an important consideration for lower power consumption.
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