Giving Better Weather to Alexa

Nearly every day, someone in our family asks Alexa for the day's weather. The default response is fine -- high temp, low temp, sun or rain.

But given our three nor'easters, intense wind chills, and high-wind days, that wasn't enough. How much rain? When will it start? How much snow? How cold will it feel?

We needed something better.

Fortunately the US National Weather Service does a fantastic job writing up little descriptions of what's in store for every spot in the country. It's been my go-to source for years. Could I get Alexa to say that?

Short answer: Yes, I could. And now you can add "Better Weather" to your Alexa, too. For free. (In the US only, for now.)

For a longer description of how I made it, read on. 

Alexa Baked in a Pi

You can put Alexa in a Raspberry Pi, and that is pretty cool.

Alexa is Amazon's intelligent agent, like Siri for your living room. Standing nearby, you speak to it with a question or a command, and it responds verbally.

Normally Alexa lives inside a $180 device called an Amazon Echo, or the new $50 Echo Dot. But Emily Withrow at Northwestern University's KnightLab told me it was possible to put the Alexa code inside a cheap Raspberry Pi hobby computer. And I happened to have an old Pi lying around.

So I gave it a whirl!