ESP32 based product + Alexa echo

[Paul85]

Hello,
I have to develop a smart product based on ESP32 able to receive vocal commands from the Alexa Echo. I found on google many example projects based on Arduino and open source libraries, but I cannot use those environments for a market product.

Is the esp-aws-iot a good starting point to develop the communication between Alexa Echo and my product?
Do I need to use the Amazon FreeRTOS?
Is there any related example project base only on code published in Espressif repository?

My idea is to create an AWS account, build on top an Alexa Skill and register the ESP32 device on AWS and use esp-aws-iot to communicate with the cloud. Is it ok?
Thank you,
Paul

[i_amey]

Hi @Paul. Adding voice based control capability with Alexa does not require anything specific on the device in terms of a specific platform or software. All that is needed is to have the device connected to some cloud service (could be AWS-IoT or any other service). Then you have to write a Alexa Skill (smart-home skill for easy integration) that basically receives the control when user speaks to Alexa Echo to control or get status of the device. The Alexa Skill then has to interact with the device cloud to which your device is connected to control the device or to get the status.

The approach that you propose to build Alexa Skill and use AWS-IoT connectivity from the device is perfectly sound and you may want to take a look at ESP-Jumpstart (https://github.com/espressif/esp-jumpstart). Example 5 already provides a boilerplate application to connect the device to AWS-IoT. Hope this helps.