Matrix Labs Releases Matrix Voice Developer Platform
Continuing its build-out of a complete ecosystem of open-sourced IoT developer tools that are fully compatible with Google Android Things, Matrix Labs has introduced Matrix Voice, a Raspberry Pi-based or stand-alone development board that allows industrial hardware developers to create voice-control apps within minutes.
"Matrix Labs is creating the future today with the development of a far-reaching, versatile, and language- and hardware-agnostic platform that's revolutionizing the way developers create apps for the IoT," Matrix Labs Co-founder and CEO Rodolfo Saccoman said in a statement. "Matrix Voice is our latest addition to the Matrix Labs toolbox and, like our Matrix Creator dev board, Matrix OS, App Store, it's poised to accelerate the creation of next-generation voice-control apps faster and more cost-effectively than ever before."
Measuring 3.14 inches in diameter, the new Matrix Voice dev board features voice recognition integration with Google Voice and Amazon Alexa. It offers a radial array of seven MEMS microphones connected to a Xilinx Spartan6 FPGA and 64 Mbit SDRAM, which, when combined enables developers to integrate custom voice and other hardware-accelerated machine learning algorithms right onto the silicon. Voice also includes 64 GPIO pins (40 pins for Raspberry Pi, 16 GPIOs, two i2c, and power pins) for device-to-device connection. Other features include far-field voice capture, beamforming, acoustic source localization, noise suppression, de-reverberation and acoustic echo cancellation, and more.
Matrix Voice launched on Indiegogo Feb. 21 for an early-bird price of $45 and will start shipping in May. A stand-alone 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled 32 bits microcontroller version of Matrix Voice will also be available.
"While developers eagerly await the launch of Android Things and Google's other recently-announced Pi-based developer tools, we welcome them to first experience our Matrix ecosystem, which has been demonstrated, beta tested, and utilized now for over a year by thousands of developers across the globe," continued Saccoman. "We're confident that between our Creator, OS, App Store, and very soon our Matrix Voice, developers will come to learn that, despite our tight-knit team of only 35 people, we've developed something quite brilliant that's available right now!"
The Matrix Creator Raspberry Pi-based dev board, which launched in July 2016, offers more than 20 components, sensors, and device-to-device connectivity/communication for development of functional hardware devices, such as drones, robots, DIY Amazon Alexa speakers, and much more. The Matrix App Store is an IoT app marketplace that allows developers to upload, download, and soon buy and sell apps created on Matrix OS, Android Things, or any other OS available. In addition to acting as a marketplace, the Matrix App Store is also an education resource that makes available various machine learning and computer vision libraries to expedite the development of IoT apps. The Matrix OS is the platform from where Matrix Creator apps are built. While it's currently compatible with Javascript, C++ and Python will be made available in the near future.
"We remove the clutter and provide an enabling machine intelligence creation platform. Comparable to how Apple's iPhone platform unlocked the potential of mobile, we are doing that for the convergence of IoT and artificial intelligence," said Brian Sanchez, chief technology officer and co-founder of Matrix Labs.
"Our Matrix ecosystem provides both DIY and enterprise developers with the hardware, software, and marketplace to bring to life whatever exists in their imagination and then publish it for public consumption," concluded Saccoman. "No longer is IoT app development reserved for those with months of time, millions of dollars, and years of education. Today, with our currently available Matrix ecosystem, IoT app development and product creation is now just as simple and affordable for both institutions and individuals, alike, as building a website with platforms like Squarespace or Wordpress."