Porcupine Wake Word
C Quick Start

Platforms

• Linux (x86_64)
• macOS (x86_64, arm64)
• Windows (x86_64)
• BeagleBone
• NVIDIA Jetson Nano
• Raspberry Pi (Zero, 2, 3, 4)

Requirements

• C99-compatible compiler
• CMake (3.4+)
• For Windows Only: MinGW is required to build the demo

Picovoice Account & AccessKey

Signup or Login to Picovoice Console to get your AccessKey. Make sure to keep your AccessKey secret.

Setup

1. Clone the repository:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Picovoice/porcupine.git

Usage

1. Include the public header files (picovoice.h and pv_porcupine.h) .
2. Link the project to an appropriate precompiled library for the target platform and load it.
3. Download a language model .
4. Download a keyword file based on the desired language and the target platform.
5. Construct the Porcupine object:

static const char* ACCESS_KEY = "${ACCESS_KEY}";

const char *model_file_path = "${MODEL_FILE_PATH}";
const char *keyword_file_path = "${KEYWORD_FILE_PATH}";
const float sensitivity = 0.5f;

pv_porcupine_t *porcupine;

const pv_status_t status = pv_porcupine_init(
    ACCESS_KEY
    model_file_path,
    1,
    &keyword_file_path,
    &sensitivity,
    &porcupine);

if (status != PV_STATUS_SUCCESS) {
    // error handling logic
}

6. Pass in frames of audio to the pv_porcupine_process function:

extern const int16_t *get_next_audio_frame(void);

while (true) {
    const int16_t *pcm = get_next_audio_frame();
    int32_t keyword_index;
    const pv_status_t status = pv_porcupine_process(porcupine, pcm, &keyword_index);
    if (status != PV_STATUS_SUCCESS) {
        // error handling logic
    }
    if (keyword_index != -1) {
        // detection event logic/callback
    }
}

7. Release resources explicitly when done with Porcupine:

pv_porcupine_delete(porcupine);

Custom Keywords

Create custom keywords using the Picovoice Console . Download the custom wake word file (.ppn) and create an instance of Porcupine using the custom keyword model.

Non-English Languages

Use the corresponding model file (.pv) to detect non-English wake words. The model files for all supported languages are available on the Porcupine GitHub repository .

Demo

For the Porcupine SDK, we offer demo applications that demonstrate how to use the wake word engine on real-time audio streams (i.e. microphone input) and audio files.

Setup

1. Clone the repository:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Picovoice/porcupine.git

2. Build the microphone demo:

cd porcupine
cmake -S demo/c/. -B demo/c/build && cmake --build demo/c/build --target porcupine_demo_mic

Usage

To see the usage options for the demo:

./demo/c/build/porcupine_demo_mic

Ensure you have a working microphone connected to your system and run the following command to detect porcupine:

./demo/c/build/porcupine_demo_mic \
-l lib/${PLATFORM}/${ARCH}/libpv_porcupine.so \
-m lib/common/porcupine_params.pv \
-k resources/keyword_files/${PLATFORM}/porcupine_${PLATFORM}.ppn \
-t 0.5 \
-a ${ACCESS_KEY} \
-d ${AUDIO_DEVICE_INDEX}

For more information on our Porcupine demos for C, head over to our GitHub repository .

Resources