
Show HN: Snips is a AI Voice Assistant platform 100% on-device and private - oulipo
https://snips.ai
======
oulipo
I'm a co-founder of Snips, we are building a private-by-design Voice Assistant
platform which allows companies and makers to build a smart assistant 100% on-
device.

Why do we do this? We want assistants of the future to respect user privacy,
and not stream your voice or your most important questions to servers that you
do not control.

With Snips, 100% of what we do runs on the device (the platform ships for
Raspberry Pi, more platforms are available for entreprise customers,
contact@snips.ai)

We are using state-of-the-art deep-learning Automated Speech Recognition and
Natural Language Understanding to allow makers to plug a voice assistant in
their device in 5 minutes.

We are actually benchmarked our NLP and are outperforming most of the
commercially available NLU providers: [https://medium.com/snips-
ai/benchmarking-natural-language-un...](https://medium.com/snips-
ai/benchmarking-natural-language-understanding-systems-google-facebook-
microsoft-and-snips-2b8ddcf9fb19)

~~~
taneq
This is awesome. Every other assistant AI type product seems to be designed
primarily as a pretext for invading its users' privacy. Thanks for building
something that might be both useful and trustworthy at the same time!

~~~
natch
You should take a look at what Apple is doing if you think that. Especially
the developments announced last week. Going forward I would expect to see a
vast number of products on that platform both from Apple, and from third party
developers, that are doing on-device and privacy-focused implementations of AI
applications.

~~~
CaptSpify
Without source code that seems like all smoke and mirrors to me.

I'd _love_ it if they released it, and I'd start buying their stuff
immediately. But until they put their money where there mouth is... meh

~~~
natch
No need to be snide about it. Of course they aren't going to open source the
entire OS. Just like Google hasn't open sourced all of Android. They always
hold something back.

And you're commenting on an article where the maintainer has said that open
source is "coming in the future."

In the meantime:

[https://opensource.apple.com](https://opensource.apple.com)

[https://github.com/apple](https://github.com/apple)

[http://llvm.org](http://llvm.org)

[https://swift.org](https://swift.org)

[https://developer.apple.com/opensource/](https://developer.apple.com/opensource/)

I think it's safe to say they are betting the company on this, and putting
plenty of money into it.

And far from being smoke and mirrors vaporware, this is hardware and software
that you can hold in your hand and use and rely on, and millions of people do,
every day.

~~~
CaptSpify
I'm not sure how my comment is "snide". It's just a fact: I don't trust them.

And I don't see how Google is relevant to the conversation. They don't release
source, so I'm not really interested in their products either. Just because
one company is does things in a way I don't like doesn't mean I have to accept
it when others do it that way.

"coming in the future" is nice, but I've heard that speech before, and I'm not
holding my breath. If they are betting the company on this, then great! I'll
put a lot of money into their products. But until they do, meh, I'm not
interested.

And by smoke and mirrors I don't mean vapor-ware, I mean distracting from the
real issues, and hiding their flaws instead of fixing them.

~~~
natch
Well, you are making assumptions from ignorance.

You don't have to hold your breath. I gave you the links. The open source is
already there. Breathe.

And you seriously think Apple is not fixing flaws?

Watch their WWDC sessions. They have fixed tons of flaws.

Your hate is showing through. Maybe set aside your feelings once in a while
and look at the facts.

~~~
CaptSpify
I really don't think I understand what you mean. Those links are some open
source stuff that they've done. Great. That's not the OS, nor the apps. I want
them to open source the OS and their apps.

I'm sure they _are_ fixing security flaws, but they are still not addressing
the underlying issue. I like what they say their philosophy is, but until they
open source all their stuff, I have no reason to trust them.

I definitely hate them, because I _really_ want a company like them to
succeed. But they refuse to put their money where their mouth is. I'd invite
you to point me to any facts that I've missed, but I don't see where I've
missed any.

~~~
natch
Let me know when you've watched their WWDC talks from this year on privacy and
security. Especially privacy.

You could do previous years too and those would be complementary, not
redundant, but that's quite a time commitment and a lot to ask. Just this
year's would be a really great start. Then I'd love to hear what you think
after that.

Yeah they won't be _completely_ open source any time soon, that's a nice
dream, lol. But imho you should open your mind to learning about what they are
doing now, before being so negative and down on them.

~~~
CaptSpify
> Let me know when you've watched their WWDC talks from this year on privacy
> and security. Especially privacy.

Nope, not going to. Frankly it's a waste of my time because I'm not going to
buy their product. They can say nice things on a stage all they want, but
until they open source it, then I really don't care. If they open-source it,
then I would buy their products in a heartbeat.

You say it's a nice dream, I say it's reality. I have a laptop/desktop system
that works great and is FOSS. I don't see how phones or any other computerized
device is any different. None of it matters until they put their money where
there mouth is. I'm only being negative towards them because they refuse to
fully commit to what they preach. I find nothing wrong with that, and frankly,
I don't get how other people don't have a problem with that.

~~~
natch
They were not saying just nice things on stage, contrary to your little
imagined scenario. They were saying stuff a lot of developers didn't want to
hear.

Stuff like stop tracking, limit tracking, don't capture so much data, protect
privacy this way, that way, do machine learning on device in such a way that
data never makes it to any cloud, use storage techniques that keep the keys
away from anyone but the user including Apple, etc.

A lot of developers buy into protecting privacy but to many developers they
were not saying nice things on stage, as you unthinkingly imagine.

If you don't get things, and lack understanding, the solution is to seek
knowledge. I suggested one good way to do that. Your ignorance is on you, not
on them.

~~~
CaptSpify
I think your missing my point: I don't care what they _say_. I care what they
_do_. Actions speak louder than words. If they are encouraging privacy, cool.
I can respect that. But they aren't _doing_ privacy.

Until they do that, why would I look into them? I choose ignorance in a lot of
things that waste my time. Looking into a company that won't put their money
where their mouth is would also be a waste of that time.

~~~
natch
Meh. Do your homework.

~~~
CaptSpify
What homework have I not done? What fact am I missing? I have all of the
information needed to make an accurate judgment.

You've yet to give me any answer to that question, and I'd invite you to point
me to anything that I have stated that is incorrect.

------
MikeKusold
I'm extremely tired of seeing "Coding since age 8", especially on a company
about page[0].

It'd be like an artist having a macaroni collage that they made during
kindergarten in their portfolio.

[0] [https://snips.ai/about/](https://snips.ai/about/)

~~~
oulipo
But it's true! And my first language was actually Pascal and then assembly :)
I had the chance of having some family working around computers at the time,
and showing me how to code multiplication tables while I was learning them at
school

------
Jaruzel
I couldn't find a video of it in action (things like response delay are quite
important to me) on the actual site, but managed to dig this up on Youtube:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wThoRtIeExo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wThoRtIeExo)

~~~
stedaniels
@oulipo why is this video not discoverable on your site? There should be a lot
more videos like it!

~~~
oulipo
Thanks, we are working on adding more content on the website, you can also
subscribe to the newsletter to be informed when we add some DIY tutorials to
build cool assistants!

~~~
stedaniels
I'm especially interested in the synergy between the voice/intent recognition
and what was being displayed on the tablet. Is that part of the platform? Or
something else?

~~~
rhindi
Every component publishes a message on the local network, so you can have
other devices like an iPad capture the output

~~~
stedaniels
Thank you both! I'll be fervently following this. I've got a Home Assistant
controlled home, this should fit in beautifully :-) I wish you luck on your
enterprise offering!

------
TeMPOraL
Great! Glad to see someone doing IoT the right way!

What's the pricing though? I have an impression this is a paid product, but no
pricing info is present.

EDIT: also, in trained_assistant.json, what does "tfidf_vectorizer_vocab"
represent, and why it includes words like "nazi" and "hitler"? ;).

~~~
oulipo
The product is free for personal use, and paid when you are selling devices

~~~
jd20
I was also hunting for pricing info, before deciding if I wanted to pursue
something like this further. Is it determined on a case-by-case basis, or same
for everyone? If same, any reason not to publish it somewhere on the website?

~~~
oulipo
We are still evolving the exact pricing, so you should tell us about you and
we will see what would be the best way to work together, we are happy about
helping as many makers as we can ! contact us at contact@snips.ai

------
KaiserPro
Ooo, the intent interface is brilliant

I've been struggling with alexa and google assistant, to make something useful
for embedding. So much backwards and forwards with setting up infrastructure
for skills.

This is smashing.

------
fpgaminer
This is exactly what I was looking for a few months ago. I wanted to build a
voice activated gym assistant, mostly to help me track my sets, reps, and
breaks. I was hoping to have it all on-device using a Raspberry Pi, but I
didn't find anything great. It ended up being "easier" to use Google Cloud for
speech recognition (easier in quotes, because dealing with Google's APIs is
never easy).

Shelved that project while I was busy working on other things. This has me
excited to give it another go!

------
noonespecial
Ahh. Finally a realistic chance of cleanly adding "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." to my
benchtop drink dispenser project.

The future is so cool. 1990's childhood me approves greatly.

~~~
oulipo
We'd love you to build the best Tea Serving intent on the platform, play with
it !

------
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
The voice and confirmation sounds in the later part of the video reminded me
of Siri. Is that resemblance intentional? Or is this only in the demo video to
give Apple an idea of how this compares to Siri (subconsciously pushing for an
acquisition)?

Edit: I’m referencing the demo video.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wThoRtIeExo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wThoRtIeExo)

~~~
oulipo
We used an open-source library of sounds :)

------
bsaul
glad to see snips finally releasing a product after all those years...

------
jhewitt123
Cool, I have been experimenting with Google's VoiceHAT board, and the Picroft
open source voice control from Mycroft which runs on Pi, both of which are
fairly straightforward to set up to control real world devices. How does one
do this in Snips?

~~~
oulipo
You can code any handler you want using your favorite language, the output of
the Natural Language Understanding is sent on a MQTT bus

you need to add a MQTT listener in your code (there are many libraries in many
languages), you can see an example on the documentation
[https://github.com/snipsco/snips-platform-
documentation/wiki...](https://github.com/snipsco/snips-platform-
documentation/wiki/2.-Running-your-first-end-to-end-assistant)

~~~
jhewitt123
Not very familiar with MQTTother then that a few micro boards I use like the
ESP8266 can comeready for it. I mean just set up a voice key word to toggle a
pin on the raspberry Pi to control a relay. With the VoiceHAT you just setup a
word in a Python program, simple. In Picroft, you do a similar thing. Here I
toggle an LED with the VoiceHAT; for example,
[https://plus.google.com/115226830543207487087](https://plus.google.com/115226830543207487087)

~~~
oulipo
It is the same with our platform, you can bind to the "hotword detected"
message and run the code you want

~~~
jhewitt123
I'd love to try it out, just don;t know how to doit honesty, nor how to add an
MQTT handlerfor that matter. I can install and run programs on the Pi, and
wire relays to pins, that's about it.

~~~
oulipo
Take a look at [https://github.com/snipsco/snips-platform-
documentation/tree...](https://github.com/snipsco/snips-platform-
documentation/tree/master/python), it is as simple as

pip install paho-mqtt

and writing a dozen line of Python!

------
yellowapple
A source code release (even under a non-free license) would be much
appreciated for those of us who would rather actually attempt to build this
for non-RPi platforms ourselves than wait for the vendor to get around to it
(if they get around to it at all).

Right now, there doesn't seem to be anything aside from the RPi build (the
download page for which also requires me to login with my email address, so I
didn't proceed to actually download it). That's a shame.

------
Ekami
Last time I was at a machine learning meetup where Rand gave a speech about
the features of your framework he told us that for the speech recognition part
you were using Google/Apple APIs, only the NLP/NLU would be handled by you. Is
it still the case? Because I don't think Google does "privacy by design" and
when someone sells me a product with that brand I expect it to be 100%
private, not half private.

~~~
s_maury
Now we have developed our own Speech to Text component, all offline. We have
only support for US English for the moment but we are working to support more
languages. Feel free to try it on our web site!

------
CaptSpify
Maybe I'm missing the obvious, but where's the source? I don't see a link
anywhere?

~~~
rhindi
We will be open sourcing it gradually over the year

~~~
CaptSpify
Cool. Is there a way I can get notified once it is fully open?

I'm guessing there's not a large demographic of people who want privacy-
focused software, but don't care if it's closed source.

~~~
oulipo
You can subscribe to the newsletter and get information about cool DIY posts
on our blog and the new features!

------
dlwdlw
What is preventing the bigger players from having on device voice assistants
as well?

~~~
RugnirViking
The fact that they perform worse, given they have constraints like size of
memory/hard disk and speed of processing to worry about.

The only real argument for on-device is privacy, which most people don't care
for

------
spitfire
Are there plans to extend this to a multi-turn (goal based) agent?

It's nice to have single turn interactions for turning the lights on. But not
so nice for Eg: booking a complex flight, or navigating unknown options.

~~~
oulipo
Yes! there is a first version of dialog, and the next version will allow
multiple turns and customizable dialog!

~~~
spitfire
How are you building out multi-turn/goal based approaches? hardcoding a rule
engine, or something clever?

~~~
oulipo
The first version is hardcoded, the next version will allow custom behavior
designed by the users

Over time we want to add full dialog capacity to the AI

------
stuaxo
Great! I've been thinking for a while we need compelling examples of offline
functionality and along this comes.

------
johanneskanybal
We all want this. Guess since I'm on parental leave it's my duty to try it
out.

------
overdunk

      Snips is an AI
    

not

    
    
      a AI

~~~
oulipo
Thanks!

------
taoice
i wait japanese language support

------
BadThink6655321
iOS support?

~~~
s_maury
We are working to add support for various platforms, including iOS & macOS
sure! Stay tune on our site.

