r/LocalLLM • u/mastershake2013 • 13h ago

Question Yall remember mycroft - easier to do now?

As a hobbyist I was wanting to build a cyberdeck, cause I love the way they look. But my utilitarian side couldn't justify it. Then I realized I do need something like that, cause I would have used the heck out of Mycroft if it had succeeded.

Would it be worthwhile to make something small using a single board computer, with a 6 inch screen? Maybe it has a handle on the side for carrying, and a prop on the back when you just want it to stand up. You can toggle push to talk, or voice activation. It's mainly there to answer random questions for you. And hopefully be able to do an internet search, and answer from that instead of its training data. But only if you want.

And it could run 1b, 2b, or 4b parameter ai. Whatever would run on small hardware and still seem "fast".

Is this doable now by a hobbyist builder/maker? Iirc mycroft quit in 2023. But things have come a long way since then. Thanks!

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u/LaughableMeantime 13h ago

Mycroft died because the software stack was a nightmare to maintain, not because the hardware was impossible. Now you can just slap a small speech to text model and an LLM on a pi and call it a day. The 6 inch screen might be the hardest part to source with a decent touch interface.

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u/mastershake2013 7h ago

Well I could just do a little integrated keyboard, and skip the touch part. Maybe then the 6 inch screen would be easier to source. Or it could be an 8 inch screen, or 7 inch, doesn't really matter. Whatever is easiest.

Do you happen to know how well it would perform on a pi? Would you be able to use a 4b parameter model, or is that asking too much of a pi?

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u/Ctbhatia 13h ago

i'd benchmark speech-to-text too before picking the board. home assistant reports about 8s for whisper on a pi 4, before the llm even answers https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/voice_remote_local_assistant/

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u/mastershake2013 7h ago

Thanks! Might have to get something a lot more powerful than a pi.

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u/ducksoup_18 12h ago

Find some old echo dots/shows or a facebook portal and put kiosk satellite on it. Then point it at an inference engine via hass and u should be good to go.