We love Amazon Echo. The voice-activated, cloud-connected device is much more than a personal assistant. And we love the 3D Robotics Iris+ Drone that debuted in 2014 with its “Follow Me” functionality.
And we certainly love any time two of our favorite products come together. In the video above, the fine folks at Hackster shared a project about how to control a 3DR Iris+ Drone exclusively through Amazon Echo’s “Alexa” voice interface.
You can read complete details about this project here, but here’s a quick overview of how it works after the programming has been completed:
First, you need to say “Alexa, talk to drone” to activate this capability. Alexa will then say, “Welcome to Drone Control.” You then say “Command Launch” to make the drone take off. You can then tell it to “go straight five meters” and it will oblige. Once it reaches that waypoint, it will ask you for its next command. As you’ll see in the video, you can then tell it to “go right 15 meters” or “turn left 45 degrees.”
Very cool stuff. And when you want to end your flight, simply say “command land” and the 3D Iris+ drone will safely descend to the ground.
As the project details state, “you need to be familiar with controlling your aircraft using the manual controls before you try some automated method like this.” So maybe don’t try this at home. Or do.
[Via] DIY Drones
[Source] Hackster
