Definitions for the following comparison:
Aragon1 refers to Aragon for Snips available on proknx.com
Aragon2 refers to the newer version of Aragon available on heyaragon.com
Which Aragon is the optimal choice for your personal solution?
Aragon1 is the optimal solution for a small installation with 1 or 2 smart speakers.
Aragon2 is the best choice for larger installations with 2 or more smart speakers.
What is the minimal Aragon system in terms of devices and cost?
Aragon1: one Aragon Base (480€)
Aragon2: one Aragon2 Maestro and one Aragon2 Satellite (860€)
What do Aragon1 and Aragon2 have in common?
- Aragon1 and Aragon2 are offline voice control systems for Home Automation.
- Both systems respect user privacy and do not require an Internet connection or cloud services.
- The hardware of the Aragon1 and Aragon2 Satellites WL and PoE are identical.
- Aragon1 uses Kaldi ASR and NLU, Aragon2 uses a hybrid speech-to-text system that combines Kaldi and Whisper.
- Aragon1 and Aragon2 come with Node-RED, pre-installed and configured. Aragon2 comes with latest version of Node-RED.
What are the differences between Aragon1 and Aragon2?
| Aragon1 | Aragon2 |
| Operating system: Debian 9 (stretch) | Operating system: Debian 11 (bullseye) |
| Node-RED v0.12 | Node-RED v4 |
| Basic TTS but offers online Amazon Polly. | Enhanced built-in TTS. |
| Training and configuration of ASR/NLU less flexible. | Training and configuration of ASR/NLU customizable and more flexible.Hybrid speech-to-text system that combines Kaldi and Whisper. |
| Web UI in English only. | Web UI in German, French, and English. |
| Core features are developed and licensed by Snips, now Sonos. The software is no longer maintained. | Software does not depend on third-party licensed software for speech recognition. |
| Software is actively developed and supports features like Netdata, Tailnet Peer-to-peer VPN, On-Board Large Language Model and Integrated To-Do and Reminder Application. | |
| Powerful and designed to remain relevant in the future: Quad-core ARM A76 (2.4GHz) and quad-core A55 CPU (1.8GHz), 8Gb RAM and 32Gb eMMC | |
| One wake word ‘Hey Snips’. | Wide selection of wake words. |
| Easy-to-use interface for configuration of the ‘all-KNX’ gateway (KNX via NetIP). |
What do ASR and NLU mean?
ASR stands for Automatic Speech Recognition. It is a technology that converts spoken language into written text. ASR systems typically use a combination of an acoustic model and a language model, and they often employ machine-learning techniques.
NLU stands for Natural Language Understanding. It is a sub-field of artificial intelligence that focuses on machine reading comprehension. NLU models interpret the text produced by ASR, providing structured data that a system can act on. This process allows the system to understand and respond to voice commands.