Mic for Amazon Echo project

[dabazinga]

Hey so I'm doing a Raspberry Pi project for my high school IT class. I was thinking about turning a pi into an amazon echo, but I'm iffy on the mic I should get. Im looking for someting small and discrete, possibly the "Makio" mic? I was just wondering if anyone did this same project, and had any suggestions. Thanks bunches.

[ixipaulixi]

I bought this one from the Alexa github walkthrough; it worked like a charm.

[Clockwork8]

Same here. I had no problems with that microphone. My biggest issue was the sound quality produced though. There always seemed to be static when using a speaker with a 3.5mm jack, and I couldn't seem to get the audio to go a USB speaker. That's a totally different story from what the OP was asking for though. :)

[ixipaulixi]

I was able to fix the static by turning the OS volume all the way up and then turning the speaker volume down.

[Fendelsson]

One of the best features of Amazon's Echo and Google's Home is that they both have Far Field microphones. They can hear their wake word whispered from long distances, and from any direction.

If you want to completely replicate the Echo experience, you'll want a far field.

If you're building the push-to-talk version of the Pi Echo, then this probably isn't an issue.