AVS Integration for AWS IoT Core can transform the way users interact with smart “things,” bringing cloud-based Alexa experiences to a host of consumer devices with no need for significant investment in electronic hardware, and could hasten the end for traditional buttons and dials.
ST’s Amazon-qualified solution jump-starts the design of Alexa-enabled appliance controllers, and the energy-efficient STM32 is suitable for low-cost, simple connected devices that require state-of-the-art features such as far-field audio capture and natural-language understanding.
ST’s reference design contains a compact 36mm x 65mm main board that combines a high-performance STM32H743 MCU and Wi-Fi module.
Unlike other devices commonly used for Alexa products, the STM32 integrates all the necessary system features, including powerful audio front-end processing, local wake-word detection, communication interfaces, and memory, including RAM and Flash, in a single chip.
This integration enables the board to have smaller dimensions and a simpler layout.
Leveraging the features of the high-performance STM32, users can customise and scale their designs by adding enhancements and a graphical display can be combined with the voice-command capability.
Simplifying prototyping and development further, the reference design hardware includes an audio daughter board as a separate module. This contains an ST FDA903D audio codec, user LEDs and buttons, and two
MP23DB01HP MEMS microphones spaced at 36mm for size-constrained products such as power switched plugs.
The hardware’s modularity lets users implement a custom daughter board if application-specific mic spacing, acoustics, and user-interface definitions are needed.
