As this is my first foray into this sort of thing please bear with me. I picked up a brand new Alfie Voice Controlled Intelligent Shopper. I noticed the USB jack which they used for charging but I wondered if it could be see by my desktop. So I plugged it the lights came on, but no joy when I evoked lsusb. So now on to plan B.
I needed to see what makes this thing tick. So lets open it up.
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I opened it up by removing the black fabric and underneath there are four (4) small Phillips screws, then the bottom can be removed. Then separate the Top (blue) plate, beware of small wires and separate the PCB from the black speaker mount, Oh I forgot pop the battery off the black base.
Now for what makes this thing tick. There are three IC
- CC3200 - SimpleLink WiFi and Internet-of-Things Solution, a Single Chip Wireless MCU
- TLV320AIC3100 - Low-Power Audio Codec With Audio Processing and Mono Class‑‑D Amplifier
- W25Q32JV - 32Mbit Serial Flash Memory with Dual, Quad SPI
The CC3200 is a really neat MCU from TI, it has a complete IP stack, and is ARM-7 which is 32-Bit. I ran it to it a few years ago when I picked up a pair of CC3200 LaunchPad (CC3200-LAUNCHCHXK). It debugs via the USB port and plays well with the 
IDE.
