Motivation

The amazon alexa eco system has had a serious impact om using voice control, but also comes with a couple of issues around security, privacy and control. One of the devices in the eco system is the 3rd generation echo dot (dot): a small, decent sounding smart speaker in a nice housing and some decent hardware.

With the introduction of the 4th generation echo dot, it is to be expected that a lot of these 3rd gen dots might end up in drawers, on landfills and add to the pile of electronic waste. But it is in essence a small computer (quad core arm @1.3 Ghz) with 4 microphones, 12 RGB LEDS, a tiny amp and speaker, 4 gig flash, bluetooth, wifi and 4 buttons - so why not try to find out what else can be done with it and re-purpose the device or bits and pieces of it?

A couple of second or third hand dots were sourced and used for this project, and there might be difference due to the different software versions - the hardware appears to be all similar. They are not configured, do not have access to the internet and are not used.

Objectives

At this point there are 4 objectives

1. describe and document the hardware (the pcbs for the mic and mlb)
2. retrieve a copy of the firmware
3. determine if it is possible to interface with the mic board
4. determine if it is possible to run custom software

Contents

Most of the documentation is the wiki, some files (code, svgs) are also in the repo.