Log on to https://developer.amazon.com/ and create a developer account
In the Alexa Developer Console, click on “Create Skill”
Select “Custom Skill” and “Start from Scratch”
Click on the “Json Editor” Tab on the left side of the screen and copy paste the skills.json file found in the models folder of this github
Under Service Endpoint type, select “AWS Lambda ARN” and copy the skill ID onto your clipboard
Under Permissions, allow the skill to use the devices full address

Setting up Google Maps API

Go to https://developers.google.com/console and create an account (You might need to input credit card information for billing)
Create a new Project

Enable the following APIs:

Directions API
Distance API
Geocoding API	
Geolocation API	
Maps Elevation API
Places API

Create a new API key and copy it to your clipboard

Setting up AWS Lambda

Log on to https://aws.amazon.com/ and create an account (You might need to input credit card information for billing)
Under Location, make sure it is specified as “US-East (N. Virginia)”
Select Lambda from the available services and click on “Create Function”
Select “Author from Scratch” and name your lambda function
Select pyhton 3.7 as the runtime, and “lambda_basic_execution” as the execution role
Click on the “Create Function” button
Under “Add Triggers”, select “Alexa SKills Kit” and copy paste the skill id in you clipboard
Under “Code Entry Type”, select “Upload from ZIP”
Upload a zip file of the “Lamdba.py” code found in this github along with the necesary libraries (In this case googlemaps, ask-sdk-core and ask-sdk-model are all required)

In the Environment Variables Section, Enter the Following:

API_KEY	             |     API Key created in step 4 of "Setting Up Google Maps API"
COUNTRY	             |     "Home Country"
WORK	             |     "Work Address"
HOME	             |     "Home Address"

Click save and copy the ARN number found on the top right of the function
Copy paste the ARN number in the Alexa Developer Console under “Enpoint”

Setting up Alexa on the Raspberry Pi

Download Raspian OS (NOOBS_v2_9_0 or newer)

Run the follwing commands on the raspberry pi:

 wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alexa/avs-device-sdk/master/tools/Install/setup.sh \
 wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alexa/avs-device-sdk/master/tools/Install/genConfig.sh \
 wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alexa/avs-device-sdk/master/tools/Install/pi.sh

Go to https://developer.amazon.com/alexa/console/avs/products and click create a new product
Name it “Raspberry Pi”
Under “Security Profile”, navigate down to “Other devices and platforms”
Click on download and save the file as “config.json”
Place this file in you /home/pi directory

Run the follwing commands:

cd /home/pi/
sudo bash setup.sh config.json [-s 1234]

Type in “AGREE” and wait for the porject to build
To run Alexa on the App, run the follwing:
```
cd /home/pi/
sudo bash startsample.sh
```
Follow the instructions in the terminal window to authenticate the device, by login on to amazon and entering the unique code found in the terminal

Running Alexa

To Run:

cd /home/pi/
sudo bash startsample.sh

To Build:

cd /home/pi/build/SampleApp
sudo make

GUI Environment

Our group used PyQt and Qt Creator to produce the Graphical User Interface for our alarm clock. By using QtCreator to set the intitial UI design of the application, we were able to quickly initialize any widgets needed. We chose PyQt over Qt5.12(C++) due to the ease of use when delpoying Python3 based code on the Raspberry Pi. In doing so, we avoided any cross compling errors when working between OSX and Raspian Jessie OS.

Below are the packages and dependencies needed to get your own Smart Alarm up and running.

Development Machine

First, if on OSX, use homebrew to install required packages:

brew install python3
brew install qt5
brew install pyqt5

Now, on the machine you are developing on, download QtCreator to begin creating the UI of the Smart Alarm Clock. After editing the .ui file, simply run the following command to convert the .ui file into a python class that initializes the MainWindow object of your GUI as well as any widgets declared from Qt Creator:

pyuic5 mainwindow.ui > mainwindow_init.py

As a debug step, I often ran the GUI code on my personal machine to preview any functionalities I implemented. To do so, create a main.py file to run the PyQt application. The following code serves as a good skeleton file when building the functionality of the other widgets in your GUI:

import sys
import PyQt5
from PyQt.QtWidgets import *
import mainwindow_init

# Main Window of GUI
class MainWindow(QMainWindow, mainwindow_init.Ui_MainWindow):
    # Call setup for widgits in mainwindow_init
    def __init__(self):
        super(self.__class__, self).__init__()
        self.setupUi(self)

        # Timer connect every second
        self.time_label.setAlignment(Qt.AlignCenter)
        timer = QTimer(self)
        timer.timeout.connect(self.showTime)
        timer.start()

    # Date Label Connect Function to display digital time
    def showTime(self):
        time = QTime.currentTime()
        time_text = time.toString('hh:mm:ss')
        if (time.second() % 2) == 0:
            time_text = time_text[:2] + ' ' + time_text[3:]
            time_text = time_text[:5] + ' ' + time_text[6:]
        self.time_label.setText(time_text)

# Create Application in main
def main():
    app = QApplication(sys.argv)
    form = MainWindow()
    form.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())

# Script in Python3
if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Let’s recap. Your project folder should contain the following files (we can ignore the .cpp and .h extensions). Transport the following files from your development machine to the Raspberry Pi:

|__Project_Directory
   |__main.py
   |__mainwindow.ui
   |__mainwindow_init.py

Running the Raspberry Pi GUI

Finally, on your Raspberry Pi, use the apt-get command to download the packages needed to display your new GUI:

sudo apt-get install python3
sudo apt-get install python3-pyqt5

Navigate to your project directory and execute the main file to visualize your PyQt GUI!

python3 main.py

Contact

Dylan Verstandig: dverstandig@gatech.edu
Jacob Lattie: jhlattie@gatech.edu
Peter Nguyen: peternguyen@gatech.edu

Contents

Smart Alarm Clock using a Rasberry Pi

Contents

Authors

Presentation

Project Overview

Gallery

Hardware and Software

Hardware

Software

High Level Diagram of Software Architecture

Alexa Environment

Setting up an Alexa Skill