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Google Voice Kit review
Jun 13, 2025
Google recently launched its Assistant API for theRaspberry Pi, and a couple of weeks ago I wrote abouthow to build your own digital assistant with a Raspberry Pi. My instructions were based in part on the “Voice Kit”, a hardware and software solution which demonstrates how to get a natural language recognizer up and running with a Raspberry Pi and the Google Assistant.
The Voice Kit was given away for free with the May 2017 edition of MagPi, the official Raspberry Pi magazine, but it was sold out in hours. At the time I wasn’t able to get hold of a Voice Kit, but I used it as the basis for my own digital assistant. After I published the instructions Google contacted me and kindly offered to send me a Voice Kit! So here is my review of the Google Voice Kit.
What you need
To build your own digital assistant you will need:
The hardware
The Voice Kit is a combination of hardware and software for the Raspberry Pi. The hardware part consists of a special audio board called the Voice HAT which connects to a supplied speaker as well as a microphone board. There are some classic hardware bits and pieces like an arcade button, a micro-switch, a lamp, and a bunch of connectors.
The Voice Kit comes with a cardboard frame and box, in a similar style to the DIY Google cardboard VR headset. The first step is to assemble all the pieces, connect up the various boards, and fold the cardboard pieces to make the box.
Full assembly instructions can befound over at the AIY project website. Having done it myself, I would say the trickiest part is putting together the arcade button, the lamp, and the micro-switch. But if you study the photos carefully you will succeed!
The software
The next thing to do is download the Voice Kit microSD card image for the Raspberry Pi. You can download it directly fromGoogle’s AIY Project site. Once the .img.xz file has been downloaded you need to write it to the microSD card using a card writing utility. TheEtcher.iotool is a good choice for this as it is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. You don’t need to uncompress the image file. Etcher will take care of that for you.
Insert the microSD card into your Pi, connect it to a TV/monitor and hook up a mouse and keyboard. After booting you will see the standard Pixel desktop, however the background has been changed to feature the AIY Projects logo.
There are a number of tasks that now need doing:
Now it is time to run Google’s test scripts to make sure that everything is working. On the desktop there are three files for checking your configuration, double click on “Check audio” and follow the on screen prompts. If you can hear the sound being played and you are able to record your voice then you have the audio working.
Don’t bother with the Check Cloud script as it doesn’t work as expected, however you should verify that your Pi has Internet connectivity using the Check WiFi script.
In order for the Google Assistant to work your Pi needs to be configured to work with Google’s cloud services.Full details of how you do this can be found on the Voice Kit website, but here is a quick summary:
You should now have everything you need to run Google Assistant on your Raspberry Pi. All you need to do is run the following command from the dev terminal:
Note: The first time you run main.py a web browser will open and you will need to login to Google to give permission for the Raspberry Pi to access the Google Assistant API.
Press the arcade button (and let go, there is no need to hold it) and say something to Google. Try:
Automatic startup
It is also possible to configure the Voice Kit to run the recognition service automatically. This means that the Voice Kit can be disconnected from the monitor, mouse, and keyboard and left to act as a standalone unit with just a power connection.
To start the voice recognition service type:
You can stop the service by entering:
To make the service start automatically on boot, then run:
The Voice Kit has been built in such a way that the trigger mechanism can be changed. The source code for the trigger mechanisms is found in~/voice-recognizer-raspi/src/triggers/*.pyand you can add your own modules. As an alternative Google has provided a way to activate the assistant using a clap of the hands rather than by pressing the button.
To change the activation trigger manually you need to start the application with the -T flag. As another example:
Once you have the basic Raspberry Pi based Google Assistant running then the next step is to customize it yourself. Google has lots of documentation about how you canextend the assistant using Google’s cloud services. There is even an example where you may you turn on and off an LED using your own custom voice commands.
Overall the Voice Kit is a great tool for hobbyists and professional developers alike. For the former it is a great way experiment with Google’s Cloud services, with Python and with the Raspberry Pi. For the latter it is a fast way to develop product prototypes based on Google’s services.
If you build anything cool with the Voice Kit please let us know in the comments below!
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