Mycroft on Invoke

Hi there Mycroft community,

I have only recently discovered Mycroft/Picroft and I think it is a great initiative. I have started to look for alternatives after Microsoft discountinued Cortana from the Invoke speaker. The main reason I chose Cortana was the very natural almost human like voice, and not a robotic one like Google or Amazon.
I am VERY interested in both Mycroft mark II but in Picroft as well. I do not have any tech skills (I am a 3D artist) but will there be a way to somehow hack HK Invoke and install Picroft ? All I want is to control my Philips Hue lights, Nest Thermostat and play Spotify via Wi-Fi Connect.
Also… is there a way to use Cortana’s voice with Mycroft? That would be amazing.

Thanks and if there’s anything I could help this project with, please let me know. I don’t know any programming but I can deliver good quality CG imagery.

Best of luck to you all,

I don’t see any hacks to the invoke that would allow it to run other software, so that may be a dead end. Secondly, the hardware inside may require custom drivers if it’s not something that’s well-known. There’s always the swap-the-guts method, but that seems to not be what you’re looking for.

There’s support for the Azure TTS voices, but the Cortana voice doesn’t appear in the listing of available speakers.

The hue/nest bits are usable with the homeassistant skill, and there’s a spotify skill as well for music.

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Hi,
Thanks for replying. I have a friend who is good with electronics and he might be able to put a Raspberry Pi and rewire the mics and speakers and so on but I really wanted to get Cortana’s voice and intonation. I know people managed to do that in Windows with some registry hacks to get TTS for external software(they even got the voice in Elite Dangerous) but again I have absolutely no knowledge about this I don’t even know where to start learning about it.

This would be amazing. It’s unfortunate that they’re sunsetting the device to just Bluetooth, rather than converting to some other voice assistant.

I have two of these speakers and have been trying to find resources for modding it. Maybe I’ll pull one apart to see what kind of hardware is inside them, and see if anything can be customized about it.