You probably know about Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant and Cortana, the voice-activated assistants from Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft respectively. These pieces of software on your phone or dedicated speaker in your home enable you to check your calendar, switch on the lights, check up on your commute before leaving or even better… hear the latest knock-knock joke. Google released the Google Assistant SDK, which makes it possible for tinkerers to build their own devices, and I used it, together with a Raspberry Pi 3 to build a retro-looking smart speaker. This blogpost is the full write-up of that process,…