What is the Matrix Voice tool? Well, it is none other than a brand new Internet of Things (IoT) tool from Indiegogo crowdfunding startup, Matrix Labs. Sure, there’s a lot of inventions that pop up on Indiegogo and Kickstarter, in hopes of convincing the right consumer audience to purchase their unique product. But, particularly in the technology world, meaning gadgets, phones and other mobile devices, chargers, batteries, etc, how many brand new ideas pop up to compliment yet another, unique indie device? In this case, I am referring to the new Matrix Voice tool, which can bring development of voice-controlled apps to, none other than, the Raspberry Pi!

Anything Raspberry Pi related catches the eyes and ears of developers, tinkerers, and nerds alike. Since its formation, the Pi has truly opened up the world of computing opportunities on a smaller level than ever before. Besides all the wonderful things the Raspberry Pi can do, how about we discuss what the Matrix voice tool can do. Basically, it can turn your Raspberry Pi into an Amazon Echo, or, the equivalent of it.

Very recently before hearing of this particular gadget, Matrix Labs created something called the Matrix Creator, a $99 product designed for the Raspberry Pi. Inspired by an entire community of makers, tinkerers and builders, the Matrix Creator was apparently made to replace the $350 or so worth of components you would need if you wanted to prototype different hardware applications, all by removing the bulk of wires and packaging. So, yes, when you add a bunch of sensors to the tiny computer, you get an exponential amount of potential added to the Raspberry Pi. Then, when you get to use something like the Matrix Voice, the follow up device to the Creator, you experience 64-bit architecture, and a 32-bit voice, similar to your friend’s Alexa or Google Voice operator.

The Matrix Voice dev board works either with the Raspberry Pi, or your Stand-alone ESP32 (Wi-Fi/BT/MCU) to create voice-control applications at a very low price point. More explicitly, Matrix Voice works using an array of 7 MEMS mics, connected via an Xilinx Spartan6 FPGA+64 Mbit SDRAM. Voice recognition is also featured thanks to the array of microphones, which, once triggered, includes services from Microsoft Cognitive Service, Amazon Alexa Voice Service, Google Speech API, and more. Hardware wise, there’s a 64 GPIO pin board, which breaks down to 40 pins from the Raspberry Pi, 16 GPIOs and 2 i2cs, and power pins. For tinkerers working on more commercial versions in the IoT world, Matrix Labs offers an optional 2.4GHz Wi-Fi Bluetooth-enabled 32-bit microcontroller version of the device.

All of this excitement has begun with crowdfunding on Indiegogo, where over $64,000 has been funded towards this project, making it over 1039% funded on March 24, 2017. Developers looking for the perfect opportunity to integrate their own custom voice pallet with machine learning technology, all onto one silicon platform, will find Matrix Voice THE solution for them, plain and simple, and anyone in the workings of IoT solutions should find it a functional prospect.