What is Watt-IZ?

The Watt-IZ combines purpose-built hardware with a comprehensive, ready-to-use software stack. In addition to audio input and output, touchscreen display, SD card storage, wireless connectivity, real-time clock, and power management, Watt-IZ ships with a rich collection of preloaded speech and audio demos, full source code, documentation, and reference designs. This allows users to explore, run, and modify real speech-interactive applications immediately—without writing code—while still providing a solid foundation for custom development.

Why did you make it?

The Watt-IZ exists for people who want to explore voice interfaces, conversational systems, language translators, chatbot’s, voice assistants, command interpreters, and many other AI-style applications using real hardware without needing a full development system or complex setup just to run and experience the speech-enabled features of the device. Demos and applications can operate standalone from the SD card, while users who want to build or modify firmware can use a normal PC-based development workflow.

What makes it special?

Watt-IZ is not just capable of running speech-enabled applications—it already does. Rather than starting from bare hardware and assembling drivers, libraries, and audio pipelines from scratch, users receive a complete, working speech platform with real demos, full source code, and detailed documentation included. The hardware, firmware, and software ecosystem were designed together to support audio capture, playback, storage, networking, and user interaction in a way that reflects real-world constraints of embedded systems. This allows users to learn, experiment, and build speech-interactive devices by studying and modifying proven implementations, instead of spending weeks overcoming basic integration hurdles.

What's in the box?

The basic Watt-IZ kit ships with the following:

• Assembled and tested PCB assembly with a 2.8" capacitive touch screen.
• Micro SD Card, 32GB class 10, pre-written with all documentation, source code, configuration info, etc.
• CR2032 coin cell battery backup for the real-time clock chip.
• Miscellaneous connectors, pins, and extra hardware.

Optional Watt-IZ Extras Kit

Optional extras can be purchased along with the basic kit. The extras kit includes:

• AC Power Source, 5V @ 2A with 1 meter cable with USB-C power connector.
• USB-A to micro-USB 1 meter cable for connection to a development IDE. Downloading & debugging.
• 3070 4 Ohm 5W speaker pre-wired with a 2 pin connector.

Where is all the info?

Basic information and code examples are available here on Github. More detailed info, source code, schematics, and full demo projects are located on the SD card that ships with the basic kit.

What demo's are available?

• Basic Graphics examples: Graphic widgets, drag & drop, QR code create & display.
• Audio examples: record/playback, tone generation, FFT simulation and real time mic data.
• Digital clock with alarm and internet time syncronization.
• Power Demo: Measure and display battery voltage and charge current. Estimate state of charge.
• Transcribe speech to text. Converts your speech to text and displays the results.
• Transcribe text to speech. Choose male/female voices, accents, and languages.
• Chat GPT Demo: Send text to chat GPT and receive text response.
• Language translator Demo: Converts speech between 13 different languages and responds with text and voice in the target language.
• Watt-IZ app: Combines many of the above features into one application. Additionally it can intercom directly between two devices without needing a router to connect (walkie talkie).