This custom Raspberry Pi voice assistant is built around ChatGPT

If there’s one thing the Raspberry Pi is good for, it’s a little bit of everything. Home automation and voice assistant projects definitely aren’t unheard of—you can find quite a few around online. But today we’ve got an impressive voice assistant project made from scratch to share that we think is really impressive. Maker and developer Suryatejadev has created a custom voice assistant using our favorite single board computer (SBC), the Raspberry Pi 5, along with a little bit of help from AI thanks to ChatGPT.

The concept is simple, but it’s obvious that it took a fair bit of work to put together. The Raspberry Pi listens for audio using a microphone. This audio is then processed and parsed through ChatGPT so the command can be interpreted. Responses from ChatGPT can then be played back through the Raspberry Pi 5 with the help of a speaker.

This setup is very similar to what you find with a more commercial system like Alexa but with the added benefit of bypassing Amazon servers for a little more privacy. We’ve covered similar projects the past with things like TextyMcSpeechy, which makes it easier to implement unique voice profiles in voice assistant projects. We’ve also seen some with a lot of personality and character, like this Bender-themed voice assistant from ‘Futurama’. However, this project by Suryatejadev is more barebones and easy to build on if you want to make something of your own.

The main board powering this particular setup is a Raspberry Pi 5, which comes with plenty of power for handling the various components of the project. However, you’ll still need a fan to keep the unit cool as the Pi 5 is notorious for running warm. You can use any compatible microphone for audio input and any speaker you’d like for audio output.

The Raspberry Pi is programmed to listen for a keyword, in this case “corgi.” When the keyword is detected, the Pi barks in response. Audio can also be detected using a phone using an application called “Easy Voice Recorder.” The Pi can listen to audio through this app if both the phone and Pi are running “Syncthing.” Audio is converted into text using OpenAI, which is then parsed to a ChatGPT API. Responses are converted into audio using an OpenAI model and then played through whatever speaker you’re using.

Suryatejadev was kind enough to make the project open source and has shared plenty of details about the workflow for anyone interested in knowing more. The Raspberry Pi uses a custom Python script to handle the audio input and share it with ChatGPT. All of the source code is available over at GitHub to download and explore.

If you want to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project, you can check it out over at the official project page.