yet-another-intercom-hack

Hi there !
Haha, sorry for that, I'll do my best to avoid that, starting now ;)

I have few points that can be explained "briefly" ( :p ):

-for the CNC & WiFi printing stuff, I have some stuff to digg, some note written down, ' just need some time mixing that up & taking hardware limitations in huge consideation ;)

• for the power supply/charger, it indeed sems to work great ( it did during my tests on directly connecting to USB / charge battery, & use battery ), and is quite simpler that other alternatives ( thanks to using the USB pins as well as an external uC handling battery stuff properly ).
  Side note on this, the chip used on the Adafruit shield I'm using is a MCP73831, & requires a bare minimum of 2 caps & 2 resistors to work ok ( from what I could see studying the Adafruit datasheet )

• for the "keeping it powered & when done ..", I'll have to digg the Pico's "Deep Sleep" ( & how to catch some pins activity while it's waking up, be them tied to btns or mikes .. )
  => the FET solution seems like a nice alternative / pretty close to what I had in mind ( & better, since we have a FET onboard already ^^ ), though I don't know enough yet on FET to my taste .. ( nor do I on NPNs & PNPs, but I feel more familiar to them :) )

• for the mikes, connecting was easy enough ( hum, 3 wires, one Gnd, one +V, where could we possibly use the third ? .. /!\ a tiny-tiny Pico ADC pin ^^ ), but I was talking about some existing lib ( that may use Waveform internally, for ex ) that 'd be pretty close to the Arduino's "µSpeech" lib ( I guess I'll just have port it / write a little one if not ( .. still gotta finish that SIM800L stuff :/ .. ) )

• on Me4e ( the cute pluche :D ), I'm gonna have to write the following:

• simple GUI on desktop [/tablets/phones] to flash the "brains" of it ( Pico ) via USB ( desktop ) & audio ( tablets / phones )

• way to flash it as well using a file stored on the SD card ( ' already got some tests code on that ( .. ) )

• "companion app" ( if I can't / need more that the above µSpeech stuff )

My question(s) is on the said "companion app": I plan 2 scenarii of using it in tandem with the pluche:
-A: talk to Me4e -> it streams audio to phone -> the app converts to txt, parses it, & send back some commands/data to Me4e -> Me4e then does/says stuff
-B: talk to phone app directly -------------->

Now, as you guessed already, I'm wondering if the ESP8266 can be used in such manner ( seeing stuff like http://hackaday.com/2015/06/06/esp8266-as-a-networked-mp3-decoder/) is interesting .. ), and whether or not it requires additional flash AND hardware fixes for flow control or other finicky stuff ( .. )

• lastly ( and I really hope I achieved a tinier post than the prev one ): I added some quick POC code to the SingleButtonMulticodesCombinationLock ( ^^! ) to handle patterns from different pins ( .. )
  
  

This being said, here's a few pics on the Me4e project, and while the schematic & pluche is done, I still have to write that brain of his ;p
I guess 'll be posting a detailled explanation of the project on HaD.io ( .. )

Looking forward to reading from you soon, thanks for the quick support when I needed it ( thanks to that I did indeed make it in time for Valentine's day ;) )

Cheers, & keep up the good work :D

ps: also, ' got 2 more Pico's coming, some Z-tape, and I really wanna try a circuit made of conductive ink laid down using the hacked CNC ;P
ps2: remember me to hang myself when I only have lead free solder left ..

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