Amazon Alexa on Raspberry Pi

Introduction,

Any kind of smart home assistants lets say like are cool gadgets to have. You can easily buy them online but for a guy like me who likes to tinker around and prefers to make my own stuff its much more appealing to make my own. and we can make Alexa with Raspberry Pi. So in this article I’ll show you how you can setup Amazon Alexa on your Raspberry pi!

Prerequisite

• Install Raspberry Pi OS (previously called Raspbian)
• Assign Static IP address to Raspberry Pi

Hardware required

• Raspberry Pi 4 Model B
• 5V Type C adapter
• Heatsink for Pi
• USB mic for Pi
• Speakers

Step 1: Creating Amazon Developer Account

Go to https://developer.amazon.com and click on sign in. Then create your account. Your developer Amazon account is different from your Amazon’s shopping account so you need to create one.

Now that you’ve signed up, it’s time to setup the Alexa service. So that you can use Alexa on the Raspberry Pi.

Step 2: Setting up product information

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After login you will need to click on developer Console. From here select Alexa -> Alexa Voice service. This will take you to new page over there select Products. After which click on Create Product

On this screen, Enter a Product name and Product ID. I entered RaspberryPi, in both but you can choose your own name.

Select Device with Alexa built-in as the product type, Select No under Will you use a companion app and select Smart Home as the product category, enter RaspberryPi into the category and description text boxes.

Select Hands-free & Far Field for How will users interact with your product?

and then for the remaining buttons, select NO for all of them.

After all of that is done Click “Next”.

Step 3: Creating Security Profile

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Now we need to create a Security Profile. So click on Create New Profile and give it a name and description I again used RaspberryPi in both. and then, click Next.

Now we need need to add some URLs to the Allowed Origins and Allowed Return URLs

For this section, you’ll also need the IP address of your Raspberry Pi. That is why I told you to Assign Static IP address to your Raspberry Pi in Prerequisite.

To get IP address of your Pi you can type ifconfig in Terminal of your Raspberry Pi.

Under “Allowed Origins” add

http://localhost:5050
https://localhost:5050
http://YourPiIPAddress:5050
https://YourPiIPAddress:5050

Then fill in the allowed return URLs with

http://localhost:5050/code,
https://localhost:5050/code,
http://YourPiIPAddress:5050/code 
https://YourPiIPAddress:5050/code

Replace YourPiIPAddress with the IP address of your Raspberry Pi.

In my case, my IP address was 192.168.0.100

Once that is done, check to the T&C and click Finish.

After that it will pop and will say you have Created a product.

Step 4: Getting Client ID and Client Secret

After creating the product go inside your product. In my case RaspberryPi and you will see on Top your Client ID and Client Secret. So copy them and store it we will use them later.

Along with that go into Capabilities and check

• Named Timers & Reminders
• Display cards with Text

Step 5: Installing AlexaPi on Raspberry Pi

For installing AlexaPi just Copy paste all the command line mentioned below one by one in Terminla and press Enter after copy pasting each line,

cd /opt

sudo apt-get install git

sudo git clone https://github.com/alexa-pi/AlexaPi.git

sudo ./AlexaPi/src/scripts/setup.sh

After entering last line, it will ask you for your preference along with recommended option in bracket. So just copy paste the recommended options. After that Pi will take some time (5-10 Mins).

Step 6: Entering Product ID, Security Profile Description, Client ID…

When it asks you for your Product ID, Security Profile Description, Client ID etc. enter them which we copied in Step 4.

Remember, everything is case sensitive so add exactly same

Device Type ID means Product ID which we set as RaspberryPi,

Security Profile Description is under Security Profile tab once again its RaspberryPi for me.

Security Profile ID is Exactly under Security Profile Description

After that just enter your Client ID and Client Secret and hit Enter.

Step 7: Authentication

After following Step 6. If everything was right Raspbery Pi will show you an URL so click on it or Copy paste it in your browser and wait for browser to load. Then it will show you and Pop up. Asking for permissions so click on Allow and you are ready to go! It will show you Success!

Step 8: Reboot

After successful Authentication connect USB microphone and a Speaker. Then all you have to do is reboot your Raspberry Pi. After rebooting you will hear Alexa saying Hello!

to reboot you can type following command

Sudo reboot

Troubleshooting,

For some reason if your AlexaPi is not working try these lines of code

sudo nano ./AlexaPi/src/scripts/inc/os/debian.sh

the above command will allow you to change few lines of code so on this page go forward and change,

vlc-nox to vlc-bin

After doing so press CRTL+X then Y and press Enter

We have another article showing how to Enable VNC service on Raspberry pi you might like it!