Thingiverse
Echo Dot Activate trigger bracket by bobtidey
by Thingiverse
Last crawled date: 4 years, 2 months ago
I wanted a way to get a trigger from the Dot as soon as the Activation word is said before the rest of any command.
I then use the trigger to turn down volume / mute of any external device so that the rest of the command is recognised more accurately. I find that having TV on normally means I have to say commands quite loudly to make them reliable. The activation word (Alexa) is normally picked up more easily.
The method I use is to use a Light dependent resistor picking up part of the Dot LED ring which lights up as soon as the activation is spoken. This is fed into my Infra Red blaster which Alexa also controls, The LDR can be used to pull down a pin with a high value pull up (e.g. 20K) or it can be passed through a single stage FET (A03400) buffer to give a more definite switch over. (E.g. LDR from 3.3V to gate, gate to 0V via 10K, source to 0V, drain to input pin and 4.7K load resistor to 3.3V).
So Activation causes mute, command is spoken and system is unmuted at the completion of the command when light goes off.
My esp8266 ir blaster code is at https://github.com/roberttidey/IRBlasterWeb
The bracket here takes a GS55 LDR resistor to make it easier to put onto the Dot using a bit of tape to hold it in place.
LDR is > 300KOhm with LEDs off and goes down to about 6KOhm when LEds come on.
V2 bracket design has a slightly different shape with wider wings to cut down any stray light getting in and keeping dark current low.
I then use the trigger to turn down volume / mute of any external device so that the rest of the command is recognised more accurately. I find that having TV on normally means I have to say commands quite loudly to make them reliable. The activation word (Alexa) is normally picked up more easily.
The method I use is to use a Light dependent resistor picking up part of the Dot LED ring which lights up as soon as the activation is spoken. This is fed into my Infra Red blaster which Alexa also controls, The LDR can be used to pull down a pin with a high value pull up (e.g. 20K) or it can be passed through a single stage FET (A03400) buffer to give a more definite switch over. (E.g. LDR from 3.3V to gate, gate to 0V via 10K, source to 0V, drain to input pin and 4.7K load resistor to 3.3V).
So Activation causes mute, command is spoken and system is unmuted at the completion of the command when light goes off.
My esp8266 ir blaster code is at https://github.com/roberttidey/IRBlasterWeb
The bracket here takes a GS55 LDR resistor to make it easier to put onto the Dot using a bit of tape to hold it in place.
LDR is > 300KOhm with LEDs off and goes down to about 6KOhm when LEds come on.
V2 bracket design has a slightly different shape with wider wings to cut down any stray light getting in and keeping dark current low.