Will the Matrix Voice microphone array be supported?

botacious · October 9, 2018, 5:28pm

Matrix Voice microphone range is an excellent piece of hardware. Will the Mycroft create an install script as they’ve done with other hardware?

baconator · October 9, 2018, 8:01pm

Even if not, might be worth trying to get running so you can see what issues might be run into. Who knows, it might even just work out of the box.

botacious · October 10, 2018, 6:53pm

I can confirm it doesn’t work right out of the box.

KathyReid · October 12, 2018, 12:14pm

You’re welcome to have a look at the existing Picroft script and see how the install scripts are done for existing hardware, and have a go at creating one for Matrix Voice.

HotcakesSanderson · December 7, 2018, 4:39pm

The fine folks at the matrix community put this guide together now that mycroft is on raspbian stretch https://community.matrix.one/t/matrix-voice-running-mycroft-ai/2033 or https://www.hackster.io/matrix-labs/matrix-devices-running-mycroft-ai-ee9d4a

LearnedVector · December 7, 2018, 9:25pm

We also have a PR pending to automatically support this on picroft https://github.com/MycroftAI/enclosure-picroft/pull/84

botacious · December 19, 2018, 3:09am

Thank you! I’m am very excited.

KathyReid · December 19, 2018, 12:03pm

This PR is now live!! Let us know how you go

Thorsten · December 30, 2018, 5:17pm

I want to give it a try. After burning current image from https://mycroft.ai/to/picroft-image and burning to sd card the initial setup is starting.
The choice for matrix voice is missing. As seen in the PR there should option number 4 for matrix voice

echo " 4) Matrix Voice HAT.")

But this option is missing.
The PR seems to be in the “stretch” branch, but not in the “master” branch. How can i be sure to use the right version?

Do i have to install the matrix voice kernel modules manually after the wizard or will this be done by mycroft setup (Picroft / Mycroft.AI with MATRIX Voice).

Thorsten

botacious · December 31, 2018, 5:38am

I noticed this and I’m curious to hear as well. Given that it’s supposed to reboot three times during the wizard one might assume that it is installing kernel modules but I’m not sure.

github.com

MycroftAI/enclosure-picroft/blob/bb67fb66d545ca638ffcfa84a891ed7db867ef44/home/pi/auto_run.sh#L317


   ;;
3)
   echo "$key - Google AIY Voice Hat"
   break
   ;;
4)
   echo "$key - Matrix Voice Hat"
   echo "The setup script for Matrix Voice Hat will run at the end of"
   echo "The setup wizard. Press any key to continue..."
   read -N1 -s anykey
   touch setup_matrix  # setting flag to run setup_matrix_voice.sh
   skip_mic_test=true
   skip_last_prompt=true
   break
   ;;
5)
   echo "$key - Other"
   echo "Other microphone _might_ work, but there are no guarantees."
   echo "We'll run the tests, but you are on your own.  If you have"
   echo "issues, the most likely cause is an incompatible microphone."
   echo "The PS Eye is cheap -- save yourself hassle and just buy one!"

Although I’m a bit curious where setup_matrix_voice.sh is downloaded from as I don’t see it in repository.

andlo · December 31, 2018, 10:32am

As far as I can tell that is correct - there isnt ant setup_matrix_voice.sh script, and it isnt beeing downloaded. But if looking for setup_matrix the installation starts arounf line 590 if the file setup_matrix exists.
Then the repos are added and packages installed and kernelmodules and pulseaudio.

Thorsten · December 31, 2018, 3:20pm

That’s a good hint .
Between lines 590 and 665 all required steps for a matrix voice installation seems to be done.

But i currently dont know how to choose option 4 for matrix voice during initial setup since this option is not provided. Maybe i should create the file “setup_matrix” during the initial configuration process manually and then skip the mic configuration.

botacious · January 1, 2019, 2:43am

Could you clarify?

Thank You

Thorsten · January 1, 2019, 12:12pm

Happy new year 2019.

While waiting for @KathyReid to point us to the right direction i tried the following:

Writing official raspberry pi mycroft image to sd card
Canceling mycroft initial setup
Creating empty file /home/pi/setup_matrix
Replaced auto_run.sh with the one in “stretch” branch
Reboot

The initial setup starts installing the matrix modules, makes some reboots and everything looks good until it comes to the mic test when “Make some noise!” is prinited to the console. In this step the hole system stops working. No Keyboard reaction, etc. Powering off the raspberry pi is the only option.

This is really depressing.

andlo · January 1, 2019, 12:48pm

Yes - That sounds depressing.

I cant advice or help as I dont have a Matrix.

what you did do sounds like a good idea, and replacing auto_run.sh was smart. As I understands auto_run.sh should download latest auto_run.sh.
Splacing the setup_matrix file do make the auto_run.sh run the installation f the matrix stuf, so what you did were a good idea aswell.

What you could try further is rebooting and on when auto_run.sh is tsrated choose skip, as you have (maybe) alreddy installed what is nessesary to use the matrix. Just a ques.

It isnt fun having a mycroft device that dsnt speak or listen

KathyReid · January 1, 2019, 8:57pm

Unfortunately I don’t have a Matrix microphone here to test with either, so this is more of an educated guess;

The Picroft Stretch image is a base image. There have been hundreds of commits over and above this base image. These commits (to mycroft-core and enclosure-picroft) come down when the device updates - there should be an update.sh bash script in the Picroft root directory - if you run this script does it do an update?
If you run the command git log can you tell me which commit your Picroft is on? That way I can check for sure that the Matrix commit link to commit is pulled down.
Is there anything in the voice.log or audio.log which provides a clue about what’s happening?
Link to information on logs

Thorsten · January 2, 2019, 7:35pm

Hi.
After rebooting the raspberry pi yesterday it seems to work for the last day. That’s better than anything i archied in the past .

→ Would you like to install picroft on this machine
For testing i choose “yes”. It’s doing a lot of steps and finishes with "mycroft-wipe saved [3000/3000]

I executed “git log” within “/home/pi/mycroft-core” which returns 8fe127bd5d583bb1294ade245929a61b3560c6fe from @steve.penrod on Dec 31 07:05:09 2018.

Thorsten · January 2, 2019, 8:26pm

Whenever i reboot the raspberry sometimes the matrix voice works perfect and sometimes i get a system freeze while accessing the microphone.
Because i was confused by this behavior i checked in detail that my hardware setup fits the minimum requirements and it might be that …
… i am an idiot

Matrix says the raspberry pi has to use a power supply with 2.5A and i currently use a 2.0A power supply.
https://matrix-io.github.io/matrix-documentation/matrix-voice/device-setup/
This might be an explanation of the system crashes on accessing the mic .
I now order a 3A power supply and hope that the problems with the stability are gone.
Maybe that is not solving my issue but i think it was my fault - sorry for that!

KathyReid · January 3, 2019, 1:43pm

Ah! I should have checked this with you too!

botacious · January 5, 2019, 6:28am

@Thorsten So what what your step by step your process to get this working?