A crowdfunding campaign for a Raspberry Pi-based smart home device that can be controlled by voice commands has raised $500k to build a working prototype.
The device, dubbed the “Pi”, uses a Raspberry Pis’ GPIO pins and GPIO modules for power and temperature control.
It will be made from the company’s new CNC milling and milling platform.
Pi is aimed at people who want to control their home from their smartphones, tablets or laptops, but want to do so with the help of a small Raspberry Pi 3 computer or tablet.
The company’s chief executive, Alex Moroz, said the project was the culmination of an ambitious six-year project.
“We built a platform, we put it in the hands of millions of people and built a network of connected devices,” he told the Financial Times.
“And then we built this thing to do it.”
The Pi will have four sensors, a microcontroller and an ARM Cortex A7 processor.
The first prototypes are set to be built in June.
The Pi has been developed at the company as a testbed for the next stage of development.
“The first prototype we built was a little bit like the Raspberry Pi Zero.
We built the first prototype to test the software, the hardware,” Mr Moroz said.
“This is the Pi Zero that we are building today, and the next one will be bigger and more powerful.”
Mr Moruz said the next iteration of the Pi would be built from a Raspberry ZU, the company announced in October.
“When we build our next generation, we will start with the next generation Raspberry Z. But we will make sure it is made in the same way,” he said.