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Build an AlexaPi with Amazon Alexa & Raspberry Pi

Build an AlexaPi with Amazon Alexa and Raspberry Pi
Build an AlexaPi with Amazon Alexa and Raspberry Pi

Introduction

Today I want to show you how you can build your very own Amazon Echo with Alexa, on a Raspberry Pi using the excellent AlexaPi package by renekliment at GitHub. It’s not as complicated as you’d think and works just like the real thing, and I offer a free, sleek 3D printed case plans to print on your own 3D printer, or use a 3D printing service (which are pretty cheap). I also highly recommend installing the Gordon Ramsay Skill Set (free) so he can tell you how bad your cooking is 🙂

[youtube=”https://youtu.be/MlJrmqjPZhQ”]

Contents

  1. Introduction, Hardware Requirements, Flash Raspbian to microSD card
  2. Create an Amazon Developer account, Setup Device & Security Profile
  3. Update Raspbian, Install AlexaPi, Summary

Hardware Requirements

The hardware required for this project is reasonably easy to acquire, but the speaker needs to be a specific type/brand if you want to 3D print the case as it’s designed to slot into the top, but I’ll give you all the relevant links.

Raspberry Pi

You can use either a Raspberry Pi 3 or 2B models for this project, along with a minimum 8GB microSD card and a good quality power adapter for your Pi. Best to buy a starter pack which you’ll find on the links below.

Microphone and Speaker

Pretty much any mini USB microphone will do the trick, and I have given links below for the specific speaker (A10 Mini Speaker) depending on whether you’re printing the 3D case, if you’re not printing the case, you can use any speakers you like.

Case

I am giving away the 3D case print files for nix which are available here. You will need to follow the instructions to build the case.

Once booted up, just say "Alexa" then ask anything you like
Once booted up, just say “Alexa” then ask anything you like

 

Flash Raspbian

Let’s get started. Now we need to flash your microSD card with the Raspbian operating system. You’ll need a microSD card of 8GB or more and the application Etcher to transfer the .img file to it (Etcher supports Windows, Linux and MAC).

  1. Download the latest version of Raspbian (full version, not lite) from raspberrypi.org
  2. Click on and extract the .img file and take note of it’s location
  3. If not already installed, download and install Etcher for Windows, Linux or MAC
  4. Insert your microSD card into a card reader, close any automatic windows, prompts or alerts
  5. Fire up Etcher which should detect the microSD card automatically (important! if you have multiple choices, be sure to choose the SD card we are working with)
  6. Click on the Select Image button, navigate to your Raspbian .img file, select it and/or click Open
  7. Once you’re sure you have everything right by double checking, click on the Flash! button
  8. Etcher will now start the flashing process, click Yes to the Windows prompt, and close any automatic alerts/windows that show shortly afterwards
  9. Flashing should take about 5 minutes, then you’ll be presented with the “Flash Complete!” dialog
  10. Close Etcher, remove the card reader and microSD card
  11. Insert the microSD card into your Raspberry Pi

Now we can move on to the next section Create an Amazon Developer account, Setup Device & Security Profile.

Build a Raspberry Pi RAID NAS Server – Complete DIY Guide

Build a Raspberry Pi3 RAID NAS Server – Complete DIY Guide

Introduction

Today I will show you how to build a Raspberry Pi 3 RAID NAS server using USB flash drives, the Linux native RAID application mdadm, and SAMBA so the drive will show up as a normal network folder on Windows PC’s. It’s a pretty easy tutorial and shows you how to create a Linux RAID array which is a good skill to have.

Contents

  1. Introduction, Hardware Requirements & RAID Levels
  2. Install/Update Raspbian 9.x “Stretch” and mdadm
  3. Setup RAID Volume & File System
  4. Install/Setup SAMBA, Summary

Hardware Requirements

Raspberry Pi

You can use Raspberry Pi’s from version 2 onwards, so 2B, 2B+ and RPi 3’s are fine, but I recommend the latest Raspberry Pi 3. You’ll also need a good quality microUSB power pack suitable for the Raspberry Pi you’re using, if in doubt, just buy a combo pack that comes with case, power pack and other goodies.

USB Flash Drives

We will be using USB2.0 flash drives for our RAID array because RPi’s (all versions) only support USB2.0, so there’s no use spending up big on USB3.0 drives (unless you want to). The drives should all be the same size and preferably the same manufacturer for a good RAID array however, if you have an odd one out, just make sure it’s the same size or larger than the smallest drive.

In terms of drive size, your budget will be the determining factor, so just get what you can afford. Remember that with RAID-0 you get the total amount of all drives put together, so 2x 64GB drives will give you 128GB. RAID-1 will halve your total capacity, so 2x 64GB drives will give you 64GB, and RAID-5/6 will give you roughly 2/3 of total capacity, so 3x 64GB drives will give you 128GB of storage. RAID-10 will halve you total capacity, so 4x 64GB drives will give you 128GB storage (more about RAID levels further below).

RAID Levels

The number of drives you have with determine what RAID level you will be able to create. I suggest 3 (or more) drives which is the minimum required for a RAID-4/5 array that offers a good balance between redundancy and speed. If you only have 2 drives, I suggest using RAID-0, and even though there is no redundancy, RAID-0 rarely fails on solid state media. I have had my workstation running on SATA-3 SSD RAID-0 for years and it never skips a beat, but If you’re storing important files, definitely go with RAID-1.

If you’re confident in your Linux skills you can create a RAID-10 array with 4 drives, which is 2 sets of RAID-1, then each set is used to form a RAID-0 array giving you the benefit of speed and redundancy (I will show you how to create all types of Linux RAID arrays).

Number of Drives RAID Level Availability
2
  • RAID-0 Stripe (Fastest, but no redundancy)
  • RAID-1 Mirror (Excellent redundancy, good speed)
3
  • RAID-0 Stripe (Fastest, but no redundancy)
  • RAID-4 Dedicated parity disk (Good speed & redundancy)
  • RAID-5 Block-level striping with distributed parity (Excellent speed & redundancy)
4
  • RAID-6 Block-level striping with two parity blocks distributed across all member disks (Excellent speed & redundancy)
  • RAID 10 (nested RAID 1+0) (Excellent speed and redundancy)

Once you’ve chosen a desired RAID level you’re happy with, let’s move onto Install/Update Raspbian 9.x “Stretch” and mdadm.