In this week’s Dev Kit Weekly, Perry Cohen reviews the NXP EdgeReady MCU-based Solution for Alexa Voice Service.

This kit is intended to be an Edge-based solution with the core purpose of integrating Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service for the AWS IoT Core, which leverages the i.MX RT crossover MCU, which is designed with Arm’s Cortex M7 core. This allows developers to easily add Alexa voice assistant capabilities to their IoT products.

The small form-factor hardware design is 100% integrated with Amazon qualified software.

Aside from the kits incredible ability to connect with Amazon’s services, it hosts a range of other features that include everything from audio to security capabilities. You can thank the i.MX RT MCU for a lot of that.

The board hosts a class-d amplifier that operates from a 10-Volt input. It’s super-efficient and produces little noise. On top of that, it has a peak efficiency of 91% at 600 milliwatts.

The solution offers 5-volt USB Type-C, which acts as its single power supply. Staying on the topic of power, the kit has a DC-to-DC converter and an LDO, in addition to the temperature monitor…which, you guessed it, helps with the temperature control.

The kit also has a considerable amount of storage both internally and externally. Externally it allows for 32 megabytes Hyper-Flash, while internally it can hold 1 megabyte of on-chip SRAM.

It’s also important to note that the kit holds a number of popular software security features.

As you may have guessed, because this kit works directly with the AWS IoT Core, it comes equipped with multiple connectivity types. It features both Bluetooth and Bluetooth low energy. It also has 802.11 b, g, and n for WiFi connection.

If you want one of these kits for yourself, you can buy one directly from DigiKey for $139.69. Or, thanks to DigiKey, you can enter this week’s raffle and try to win one of four that we’re giving away for free.

https://www.digikey.com/en/supplier-centers/n/nxp-semiconductors