alan yin
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Hermes Pi

[One or two sentences: what Hermes is, and the rule the whole thing is built around.]

Year
2026 – present
Status
Working, and in daily use
Context
Personal project
Role
Enclosure design, display renderer, camera and voice services, integration
Stack
Python 3 · Raspberry Pi 5 · picamera2 · systemd · SolidWorks
The finished Hermes Pi on a cutting mat: a white 3D-printed wedge enclosure with a Raspberry Pi camera module beside a lit panel reading HERMES and IDLE.
[The finished unit — say what is on the panel and what it means.]

What it does

[What it does, and where the runtime ends and your work begins.]

  • [How you reach it.]
  • [Speaking and listening, and where that computation happens.]
  • [Seeing.]
  • [What it can read, and the limits on that.]
  • [Gestures.]
  • [The panel.]

The one rule

[The rule the panel is built on, and why you chose it.]

[The rule, in one line.]

[Where the rule earned its keep.]

The enclosure

[How the enclosure was driven by the components inside it.]

The Hermes Pi from a front three-quarter angle, showing the wedge profile, the camera module, the lit panel, and the Raspberry Pi's ports along the lower side.
The Hermes Pi from the opposite three-quarter angle, showing the curved rear shell and the cable routing.

[Caption both angles — what each one shows that the front view does not.]

Isometric CAD render of the closed enclosure: a wedge-shaped body with a recessed panel bezel, a camera aperture above it, and a vented rear shell.
Exploded CAD view of the same enclosure: the camera module and front bezel, the panel, the Raspberry Pi 5 with active cooler, the HAT above it, and the curved rear shell.

[The enclosure closed, and the stack front to back.]

[Caption the exploded animation.]

[What the wedge shape buys you besides a readable viewing angle.]

Hardware

HostRaspberry Pi 5, Debian 13 (trixie), aarch64, 8 GB
PanelWaveshare 3.5" HDMI LCD — physically 480×320, driven at 800×480
CameraCamera Module 3 (IMX708), via picamera2
AudioReSpeaker 2-Mic Pi HAT (WM8960) — two microphones and a speaker

About the resolution, because it looks contradictory and is not

[Why the panel is 480×320 but driven at 800×480.]

What I built

  • [The display renderer.]
  • [The camera service.]
  • [The voice service.]
  • [The runtime plugins.]
  • [The enclosure.]
  • [The operational layer — services, install, escape hatches.]

Getting out of it

[How you get a login prompt back when the network is gone, and why that matters.]

Status and what comes next

[Where it stands now, and what you would build next.]