Building a Virtual Assistant for Raspberry Pi: The Practical Guide for Constructing a Voice-Controlled Virtual Assistant (Apress Pocket Guides) - Softcover

Agrawal, Harshil; Pant, Tanay

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798868817595

Publisher: Apress, 2025

Synopsis

This new edition of Building a Virtual Assistant for Raspberry Pi will provide new features to your virtual assistant, Melissa, adding advanced capabilities to her. Updated to the latest Python release (Python 3), the book will follow the same structure as its previous edition with new features discussed as you move forward.

After walking you through the various STTs, TTSs, and implementation of these components with the Python 3, you will learn about Large Language Models (LLMs) and how to run them on Raspberry Pi. You will build applications/modules for Melissa that will be used by the LLM. The book will feature Plugin Architecture Implementation for Melissa, allowing users to script their own interactions with Melissa. You will also enable Melissa to interact with resources on the internet. In addition to Melissa's voice controlled interface for notes management, this edition will also enable Melissa to be intelligent to assist you with your tasks.

Adding to Melissa’s voice interface from the first edition, you will use an LLM to make Melissa intelligent. You will learn about function calling, providing Melissa access to tools. In conclusion, you will make a smart virtual assistant that runs on Raspberry Pi. 

What You'll Learn

• Implement plugin architecture to enable quicker scripting
• Develop modules for conversational interaction with the assistant
• Run the local LLM instance to empower Melissa with intelligence
• Interact with both public and restricted APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)

Who This Book Is For

Anyone who has built a home automation project with Raspberry Pi and now want to enhance it by making it voice-controlled. The book would also interest students from computer science or related disciplines.

 

About this title

About the Author

Harshil Agrawal is an educator, public speaker, a builder, and a developer relations professional. He is known for educating the developer community through the means of blog articles and videos. He enjoys building games and applications for everyday use.

 

Tanay Pant is an author, speaker, educator, and developer relations expert. He is best known for his work with early-stage tech startups and various books on computer science. He has been listed in Firefox's about:credits for his contributions to the Mozilla Foundation's different open source projects.

From the Back Cover

This new edition of Building a Virtual Assistant for Raspberry Pi will provide new features to your virtual assistant, Melissa, adding advanced capabilities to her. Updated to the latest Python release (Python 3), the book will follow the same structure as its previous edition, with new features discussed as you move forward.
 
After walking you through the various STTs, TTSs and implementation of these components with Python 3, you will learn about Large Language Models (LLMs) and how to run them on Raspberry Pi. You will build applications/modules for Melissa that will be used by the LLM. The book will feature Plugin Architecture Implementation for Melissa, which allows the user to script their own interactions with Melissa.

You will also enable Melissa to interact with resources on the internet. In addition to Melissa's voice-controlled interface for notes management, this edition will also enable Melissa to be intelligent to assist you with your tasks.

Adding to Melissa’s voice interface from the first edition, you will use an LLM to make Melissa intelligent. You will learn about function calling, providing Melissa access to tools. In conclusion, you will make a smart virtual assistant that runs on Raspberry Pi. You will learn the following:

• Plugin Architecture Implementations for quicker scripts
• Develop modules for having conversations with the assistant
• Run LLM locally to make Melissa intelligent
• Interacting with public and restricted Application Programming Interface (API)

Edition details

• Publisher: Apress
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798868817595
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 150