Private Voice-Control of Philips Hue Bulbs with chipKIT Wi-FIRE and Audeme MOVI Shield

The combination of the Arduino-compatible chipKIT Wi-FIRE board and Audeme's MOVI speech recognition shield lets users voice-control their Philips Hue bulbs without leaking private information into the cloud (i.e., voice recordings to Amazon or Google, Philips Hue hub data to Salesforce and other data brokers). It also allows for better control and customization of the light bulb configuration compared to using Alexa or Google Home.  Here is a short video of the experimental system:

This is an uncut, unedited video. The system works by connecting to the Hue hub via WiFi. It is powered here by a 9V block battery and a small 8ohm speaker for acoustic responses. Both voice commands and responses are fully customizable and MOVI can also speak and understand Spanish and German. 

The delay between the actual light switch and MOVI's response is introduced by the Hue hub. It is not clear why but one possible cause could be the Hub's necessity to wait for a timeout as it is not able to send data to the cloud.

Audeme will present the system at this week's Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA (May 19th - 21st) and they are happy to let you play around with it. In fact, their plan is to create an Instructable and possibly a home kit solution. So stay tuned!