SETTING UP THE RESPEAKER
The Seeed ReSpeaker 4-Mic Array Pi HAT is, as they say in the business, a nifty bit of gear. As well as four microphones, it has 12 LEDs, which can be used to indicate audio direction of arrival, or just to flash randomly and concerningly. It has GPIO and I2C connections, so that other devices can be daisy-chained to it, or it can stack directly on to Seeed’s GrovePi hub, enabling even more sensors to be connected. It uses the AC108 codec, which at present isn’t supported by the Raspbian kernel, so we need to install a custom one. Connect to the Pi, either by SSH or keyboard, and quit the Mycroft CLI. Run the following commands:
git clone https://github.com/respeaker/seeed-voicecard.git cd seeed-voicecard sudo ./install.sh
The install script chugs along for a while, and eventually you can reboot and activate the new kernel with sudo reboot . Reconnect if you were SSHing, then run sudo raspi-config to set up the audio. Select “7. Advanced Options,” then “A4. Audio,” then “1. Force 3.5mm jack.” Then reboot and enjoy.
If you run into difficulties, you may need to install Pulseaudio and restart Mycroft’s daemons with:
$ sudo apt install pulseaudio $ ./start-mycroft.sh all restart
If it still doesn’t work (and remember, if in doubt, a reboot never hurts), the Pulseaudio input device may need to be changed. List the devices with pactl list sources and then change the default to match the line beginning Name in the output, with: pactl set-default-source “alsa_input.platform-soc_sound. multichannel-input”