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Build a voice-activated LED light strip controller on the cheap with Raspberry Pi Pico.

LED light strips, sometimes called “Neopixels” in the maker community, are the perfect choice for interior lighting. They’re easy to install, inexpensive, and are completely programmable. Simply connect the light strips to a microcontroller, write some code to make whatever lighting pattern you want, and you’re good to go!

Unfortunately for me, however, I’m lazy. I have no desire to get up and change the pattern if I get bored or turn it off if I want to go to bed. I could buy some Wi-Fi connected light strip on Amazon, but these are expensive and fiddling with some app on my phone is not peak laziness. Some light strips come with remotes, but I know that I’d lose the remote within days of having it.

What if we could use the $4 Raspberry Pi Pico to control lighting strips with voice commands? With Edge Impulse, we can! With just the Pico, a cheap microphone, and a power supply, you can make a voice-controlled lighting system.”

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