Bring Google Assistant to your DIY tech projects, courtesy of new SDK

DIY tech nerds rejoice, as you now have the opportunity to tinker with Google Assistant’s tech to your heart’s desire. Today the Google Assistant SDK has arrived, meaning that you can now download it and get it up and running on a number of devices, including the Raspberry Pi 3.

Obviously the kit is aimed at companies looking to make prototypes, with the potential to create licensed commercial products with the aid of Google. But if you simply like playing around and making DIY smart home projects, this could certainly be worth taking a look.

So what can you do with Google Assistant? For one, you can ask it any of the normal stuff you’d ask your Assistant-powered phone or your Google Home speaker. Beyond that, it can also be used to directly control the gadget that you integrate it into, which pretty much leaves the window wide open on what’s possible — at least in theory.

In its current form, the only way to invoke Google Assistant on your DIY devices is using either “Okay Google” or a physical button though Google says “hotword support, companion app integration and more” are eventually on the way. It’s also worth noting that ‘direct’ actions reportedly need a closer partnership with Google, and so in its current form the SDK holds a lot of promise but is far from polished. Not surprising considering Google tends to take a “fix as we go” approach for a lot of its software and hardware projects.

What do you think of the news of the Google Assistant SDK? Will this allow Google to be more competitive with Echo and the growing legion of 3rd party Alexa accessories? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments.