Banana Pi and Open-Xchange

Here it is. A Banana Pi running an Open-Xchange AppSuite on a 8 GB SD card.

Banana pi

As the Raspberry Pi does not support ARMv7 I had to use the Banana Pi instead. Not too bad as this device is more powerful and better to run a Java backend, a MySQL database and the Apache web server. For mail I’m using an existing mail account in the cloud.

Installation was pretty much straight forward using the existing Open-Xchange quickinstall script. The only thing to mention is that the script is available with git and not with svn:

git clone https://git.open-xchange.com/git/wd/testing/quickinstall -b master

You have to make a few modifications as officially only 32-bit systems are supported. This means the OS architecture check and all office related repositories must be commented out.

Android offline speech recognition

Released today the OXAndroidDemo app on GitHub. As this app uses Android speech recognition features, it’s worth to mention that with Android >= 4.3 the speech recognition no longer requires the Google online service. Simple install the language files.

Goto “Settings” → “My device” → “Language & input”

Make sure to select “Google” and click the gear. Next step is to select “Offline Speech Recognition” and download your favorite languages.

Enjoy the faster and more anonymous speech recognition.

Smart home and voice recognition

When I was younger I really liked the computer of the Enterprise in Star Trek TNG. Always on, always listening. “He” understands all languages, accents and background sound is easily filtered out. Even with red alert in the background and explosions all around. Oh, and I still like it. Today I have my own “smart home” and can control stuff with my voice with an application written for Android. Easy as eating cake, right. Have done this in a few ours in my spare time. But wait. There is something missing. It’s not always on. I can’t just run around and say “Computer, locate [PUT ANY NAME HERE]” or “Computer, it’s to hot. Please reduce temperature by 2°”. You ask why?

Current issues:

– Maturity of voice recognition (I’m talking Linux here, more concrete Raspberry Pi!) and the overall approach (I don’t want to send every word to a Google service!)
– The environment itself. On the Enterprise you could say something in the endmost edge of any floor. This does currently not work for me at all 🙂
– Security. Don’t want to allow any stranger to control stuff just by saying something at the front door

My goal is to solve the issues as far as I can and build something which is not only cool but also useful. I’ll keep posting my results and approaches here.