Seems to be a common request: "How do I control my Amazon Echo remotely?" As to why this needs to be done is somewhat of a mystery, but evidently; done it must be...
First off; this is a hack. Even hackers being the hacker types they are will think it's a hack and those hackers will be right.
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Take a look at the diagram above. Basically what is happening is a Raspberry PI with a speaker plugged into it is commanding the Amazon Echo via a text-to-speech program.
- The user logs into their home network via OpenVPN from anywhere in the World.
- Navigate via VNC, etc. to a RasPI with a speaker placed next to an Amazon Echo.
- From the RasPI command line use the 'festival' text-to-speech program to speak instructions to the Amazon Echo.
- Amazon Echo obeys the command.
Here's a quick video demo:
Others have done the hard work, but you will need to install some software:
- If you don't have OpenVPN running, PiVPN makes this really easy on the Raspberry PI (and other platforms). This *could* be optional if you only wanted to use the hack from inside your LAN or opened up a PORT on your router. If you do decide to open up a PORT on your router for the whole wide world be aware of the risks.
- Install the text-to-speech program 'festival' on the Raspberry PI with the command:
$ sudo apt-get install festival festival-freebsoft-utils - Plug a speaker into the Raspberry PI and place it next to the Amazon Echo.
- Log into that Raspberry PI and issue a 'festival' text-to-speech command to control the Amazon Echo. For example:
$ echo "Alexa, what time is it" | festival --tts
or
$ echo "Alexa, play Super Freak" | festival --tts- Success! World domination!
