Using Jasper

Starting Jasper

After configuring Jasper, you can start Jasper by typing:

/home/pi/jasper/jasper.py

You can also start Jasper automatically on each reboot. To do that, run crontab -e, then add the following line, if it’s not there already:

@reboot /home/pi/jasper/jasper.py;

Restart your Raspberry Pi.

Selecting a network

When you turn on Jasper for the first time, it will ask you to configure a new network connection. You have two options for connecting to a network: (1) ethernet, and (2) wireless.

(1) To configure an ethernet connection, simply attach your Raspberry Pi to the wired network with an ethernet cable. If network access is provided through another computer, you may need to configure that host to route network traffic through the ethernet cable. Instructions for how to do this on OS X can be found here.

(2) To configure a wireless connection, overwrite /etc/network/interfaces file on your Raspberry Pi with the following code. Slightly different configuration options may be required for different types of wireless networks.

auto lo

iface lo inet loopback
iface eth0 inet dhcp

allow-hotplug wlan0
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
        wpa-ssid "YOUR_NETWORK_SSID"
        wpa-psk "YOUR_NETWORK_PASSWORD"

Interacting with Jasper

The most common way to speak with Jasper is with the following sequence:

• You: “Jasper”
• Jasper: high beep
• You: speak your command
• Jasper: low beep
• Jasper: speaks the response

After saying Jasper, you must wait for the high beep to speak your command. If you don’t speak a command within a few seconds, Jasper will stop listening or ask you to repeat your command.

Modules to try

By default, we’ve included the following modules to demonstrate Jasper’s capabilities:

• Time: “What’s the time?”
• Weather: “How’s the weather?… What’s the weather like tomorrow?”
• News: “What’s in the news?”
• Gmail: “Do I have any email?”
• Hacker News: “What’s on Hacker News?”
• Facebook Notifications: “Facebook notifications?”
• Birthday: “Who has a birthday today?”
• Jokes: “Tell me a knock-knock joke.”
• Life: “What is the meaning of life?”

To learn how to write your own module, check out the Developer API documentation.

Spotify Mode

If you’ve configured Spotify, Jasper will enter Spotify mode with the “Music” or “Spotify” command. Here’s a list of example commands you can issue while in Spotify mode:

• “Play Hipster Playlist”: plays playlist titled “Hipster” from your Spotify library
• “Play”: plays currently playing song
• “Pause”: pauses currently playing song
• “Stop”: stops currently playing song
• “Louder”: raises volume
• “Softer”: lowers volume
• “Next”: plays next song in playlist
• “Previous”: plays previous song in playlist
• “Close”: exits Spotify mode and resumes normal command interpretation

Jasper may have difficulty detecting your cues when the music is loud. In these instances, it helps to distance the microphone from the speakers, lowering the volume, and/or speaking closer to the microphone.