Thanks Chris, I bought a couple of these recently. I also found the speaker to be too loud, so I used the 3.5 mm jack to connect a powered speaker that has volume control. Please inform the channel if you manage to solve you speaker volume issue.
Thanks for this, it was very helpful. As I have HA installed as a container, which means I don't have the Add-On Store, I've had to install Piper, Whisper and OpenWakeWord as separate containers, and then integrate them with HA manually via Settings - Devices & services - Add Integration. Piper and Whisper have their own integration widgets, but you have to use the Wyoming Protocol option to add OpenWakeWord. In each case you have to enter the IP address and port of the service. Another difference is that, because I've previously integrated ESPHome as a separate container and added it to the HA UI with a few lines in the configuration.yaml file, when I copy / pasted the ESP32 yaml, in addition to updating the 'wifi' section, I also had to add the encryption key to the 'api' section. (This is in the yaml text that is auto-generated when you first create the new device in ESPHome.) Now that I have it up and running, I can use the wake word (in my case I've gone with 'Hey Jarvis') and ask it to turn things On and Off. It's very particular about pronunciation, so it helps to add Aliases to the exposed devices, that will be easier for it to understand (that's if you have set up your devices with non-easy or non-descriptive names such as 'ZB07 Upstairs Hallway Lights'). But other than switch things on or off, or give you the time, I can't get much else out of it. Does anyone know if you can get it to play music, either locally-stored or perhaps streamed? Can it give you the weather forecast? Can you integrate it with an inference model like ChatGPT or maybe something local e.g. Olama? What else can it do?
Their default YAML on their wiki isn't great. I wrote a new version using Microwakeword. It worked pretty well but on the HA forums there is some yaml that turns the device into a media player allowing you to control the volume. It also does timers and uses the XMOS more from my understanding. It's in the dedicated thread for the respeaker lite. I highly recommend trying it out. The 2 USB ports are because there are 2 firmware types, on for i2s like in this video and another for PC. You plug it directly into the Boardman flashing firmware and when using it in PC mode Unfortunately this doesn't do full-duplex over i2s, which is needed for a new PR in HA for XMOS chips. Their site is confusing on how to order also and they could make that much easier. I will say that with the YAML from the HA forums in the dedicated thread for this product works way better but my Wyoming satellite probably still beats it. With that said, it does seem the handle background noise is better than the S3 box does. XMOS on esp32 is very new, the firmware is still being worked out. This is a very beta product and development board, which is why there are external pads to the XIOS and XMOS chips.
Many thanks for the info. I can’t get mine working ( on a Mac) When compiling the code from their website, I get a error, referring to the i2s Any ideas would be appreciated
@@elisalant Did you flash the i2s DFU from Seeeds wiki using the DFUtil utility? I imagine so since the esp32 is being detected in ESPHome. Without knowing the exact error/warning it's hard to say. I recommend going to the HA forums, there is a dedicated thread there for the respeaker lite. That would be the best place to post the error you are getting. It also never hurts to clean the build files and try again from scratch. Sometimes things get hosed and cleaning the build files and doing a fresh install fixes the issue. You should be able to tell what firmware it's running by plugging the board into a PC, if it shows up as an audio input/output on the PC then it needs to be flashed with the i2s firmware. It won't show up if it has the i2s firmware installed, at least not as an audio device.
@@JoshFisher567 Many thanks Josh No, I have not flashed the firmware! That could be the issue. It does show up in ESP Home, but is always offline! Many thanks for your advice🙏
I just had a read of the HA thread. Interesting indeed. I am confused now. Chris has not covered the XMOS flashing in this video. I followed exactly what Chris did and its been a poor experience. So the question is do I need to do the "Flash the I2S firmware"? It seemed to start responding after the ESP flash and I thought yay, they must have sent a pre I2S flashed board.
@@guylast9516 I'm not sure what firmware comes shipped by default and because I had read the Seeed wiki I had already downloaded the i2a firmware and flashed it. I should have run another command that I believe tells you what firmware is installed. I would have to look at the DFUtil help to see what that command is, although I believe it's DFutil -L. You can switch back and forth so you could flash the PC firmware and it should show up as a microphone input device on your PC. If you plug it into your PC directly into the board, not the esp3w, does anything new show up in audio devices or device manager if using windows? No matter what it's going to show up as a device and recognize the esp32 if you plug it directly into your PC/laptop regardless of the firmware installed because it will see the Seeed XIOS S at a minimum. Without the correct firmware though it won't see the board. Similar to if you just had the XIOS with no board and plugged it in. ESPHome would see the serial devices over USB. The RGB listen light doesn't work on my board and another poster on the HA forums had the exact same issue with the same LED so I'm not sure seeeds quality control is all that good (Speculation) I imagine they are doing one of 2 things. Flashing the boards with the PC firmware and soldering the XIOS as needed or Flashing the i2s firmware on the boards with the XIAO soldered chip version. I believe if you download the DFUtil utility and type DFutil -L it will list the device and firmware but I would have to double check. It's not going to hurt the board to flash the same firmware again. You plug it directly into the board to do this. Program it by plugging it into the XIAO for. ESPHome. What is the exact error you are getting? Depending on the error I might be able to decipher it.
good vid ! ...one question -- does this device also work to play sounds as a response to automations ? Like for example, I have a device I use to have HA automations play a sound to it when the automation is triggered, like when Alarmo is activated, or when the garage door opens... etc. Earlier Voice assistants (like the Raspiaudio speaker) could be setup to do either voice Assist, or sound notification playback, but not both with the same Yaml for some reason. Does the ReSpeaker do both ? Cheers!
Saw the video - bought it - waited 4 weeks or 10. Got it. Follow the instructions, thank you for being so clear Chris. But when I speak to it, it only listens for like a micro second and then goes off (The state in HA where you can see if the ASSIST is on or not). Any suggestions? Ah I had it on the cloud chat instead of local (NABU CASA subscription expired).
Its a long way off, the simple NS algs in the Respeaker ESP doesn't even match 1st gen commercial offerings. Unless the whole audio pipeline is connected and co-ordinated as a system it will be lack lustre even to early commercial variants. The lack of opensource knowledge is blatantly on show and is just a continuation of the bluff and bluster of the likes of Mycroft or Rhasspy.
Hi Chris, Great video. Thanks. Do any of the other respeaker options have the ESP unit on board? I ask because I wonder whether some of the units with even more microphones may work even better and if I was willing to pay the extra I would also benefit from a good looking case. I would also appreciate if you could update on a solution for the LED.
Where is the long delay from the time you speak to the time the light goes on? There is another long delay after the light goes on and piper acknowledges the command was executed. Are these delays do to HomeAssistant?
Thank you Chris nice tutorial! Has anyone tried this in comparison to building this on the Raspberry Pi 2 W? I built one of these satellites using a ReSpeaker hat with the P2W and it was pretty laggy and not as accurate as I hoped. Has anyone built both and does the ESP32 version function better? I assumed the Pi 2W would perform better.
Sorry mate love your videos but I have to disagree on the product itself. Been playing with it for two months and Seeed Studio are not great at responding to your requests with their product. Installed it like you have but my findings are as follows: Does not pick up voice better than another basic low cost voice assistant I built with basic digital mic. In fact performed worse. Wake word when it works puts it into alert so displays the blue light and most of the time light turns red indicating poor connection apparently while being 2 meters from my router. Does not update OTA with Yaml I copied from the page you did as well. practically no support provided with repeat emails btw not saying it does not work, just it works 2 in 10 tries.
My experience with it is combined. I have two pre-soldered kits, and they work flawlessly with microwakeword and my own firmware (including working LED). However, i also ordered two bare boards without S3 (wanted to use my own), and those aren't working at all even with Seeed examples. Edit: now I have everything working with ESPHome, great device!
Has anyone sorted the Light problem.? Seed website RGB test shows GPIO1, which is the one used in the ESPHome file. You can also enable the light as a HA entity and see the GUI showing it turn on when when the voice assist is active. It doesn't turn off though! I'm minded to upload the RGB test sketch to see if it actually works. Edit: Well, I've just tried the RGB test and User Button Usage Sketches, compiled and loaded ok via the Arduino IDE and neither seem to work! No LED lighting up, no button press detection and no messages on the terminal. The wiring diagram on the Seeed page seemed to show GPIO2 also doing something with the LED so I've tried setting that as the port in the ESPHome file but that didn't light the LED either.
Thanks Chris, I bought a couple of these recently. I also found the speaker to be too loud, so I used the 3.5 mm jack to connect a powered speaker that has volume control. Please inform the channel if you manage to solve you speaker volume issue.
Thank you for your feedback! We are actively working on the volume adjustment issue and will update it in the next firmware version.
just put a pot on the speaker
Thanks for clearing up the order page. I couldn't figure out which to options to pick. I'm ordering mine now.
Thanks for this, it was very helpful. As I have HA installed as a container, which means I don't have the Add-On Store, I've had to install Piper, Whisper and OpenWakeWord as separate containers, and then integrate them with HA manually via Settings - Devices & services - Add Integration. Piper and Whisper have their own integration widgets, but you have to use the Wyoming Protocol option to add OpenWakeWord. In each case you have to enter the IP address and port of the service. Another difference is that, because I've previously integrated ESPHome as a separate container and added it to the HA UI with a few lines in the configuration.yaml file, when I copy / pasted the ESP32 yaml, in addition to updating the 'wifi' section, I also had to add the encryption key to the 'api' section. (This is in the yaml text that is auto-generated when you first create the new device in ESPHome.)
Now that I have it up and running, I can use the wake word (in my case I've gone with 'Hey Jarvis') and ask it to turn things On and Off. It's very particular about pronunciation, so it helps to add Aliases to the exposed devices, that will be easier for it to understand (that's if you have set up your devices with non-easy or non-descriptive names such as 'ZB07 Upstairs Hallway Lights'). But other than switch things on or off, or give you the time, I can't get much else out of it. Does anyone know if you can get it to play music, either locally-stored or perhaps streamed? Can it give you the weather forecast? Can you integrate it with an inference model like ChatGPT or maybe something local e.g. Olama? What else can it do?
Thanks!
Thank you for the support!
Their default YAML on their wiki isn't great. I wrote a new version using Microwakeword. It worked pretty well but on the HA forums there is some yaml that turns the device into a media player allowing you to control the volume. It also does timers and uses the XMOS more from my understanding. It's in the dedicated thread for the respeaker lite. I highly recommend trying it out.
The 2 USB ports are because there are 2 firmware types, on for i2s like in this video and another for PC. You plug it directly into the Boardman flashing firmware and when using it in PC mode
Unfortunately this doesn't do full-duplex over i2s, which is needed for a new PR in HA for XMOS chips.
Their site is confusing on how to order also and they could make that much easier. I will say that with the YAML from the HA forums in the dedicated thread for this product works way better but my Wyoming satellite probably still beats it. With that said, it does seem the handle background noise is better than the S3 box does.
XMOS on esp32 is very new, the firmware is still being worked out. This is a very beta product and development board, which is why there are external pads to the XIOS and XMOS chips.
Many thanks for the info.
I can’t get mine working ( on a Mac)
When compiling the code from their website, I get a error, referring to the i2s
Any ideas would be appreciated
@@elisalant Did you flash the i2s DFU from Seeeds wiki using the DFUtil utility? I imagine so since the esp32 is being detected in ESPHome.
Without knowing the exact error/warning it's hard to say. I recommend going to the HA forums, there is a dedicated thread there for the respeaker lite. That would be the best place to post the error you are getting.
It also never hurts to clean the build files and try again from scratch. Sometimes things get hosed and cleaning the build files and doing a fresh install fixes the issue.
You should be able to tell what firmware it's running by plugging the board into a PC, if it shows up as an audio input/output on the PC then it needs to be flashed with the i2s firmware. It won't show up if it has the i2s firmware installed, at least not as an audio device.
@@JoshFisher567
Many thanks Josh
No, I have not flashed the firmware!
That could be the issue.
It does show up in ESP Home, but is always offline!
Many thanks for your advice🙏
I just had a read of the HA thread. Interesting indeed. I am confused now. Chris has not covered the XMOS flashing in this video. I followed exactly what Chris did and its been a poor experience. So the question is do I need to do the "Flash the I2S firmware"? It seemed to start responding after the ESP flash and I thought yay, they must have sent a pre I2S flashed board.
@@guylast9516 I'm not sure what firmware comes shipped by default and because I had read the Seeed wiki I had already downloaded the i2a firmware and flashed it. I should have run another command that I believe tells you what firmware is installed. I would have to look at the DFUtil help to see what that command is, although I believe it's DFutil -L.
You can switch back and forth so you could flash the PC firmware and it should show up as a microphone input device on your PC. If you plug it into your PC directly into the board, not the esp3w, does anything new show up in audio devices or device manager if using windows?
No matter what it's going to show up as a device and recognize the esp32 if you plug it directly into your PC/laptop regardless of the firmware installed because it will see the Seeed XIOS S at a minimum. Without the correct firmware though it won't see the board. Similar to if you just had the XIOS with no board and plugged it in. ESPHome would see the serial devices over USB.
The RGB listen light doesn't work on my board and another poster on the HA forums had the exact same issue with the same LED so I'm not sure seeeds quality control is all that good (Speculation) I imagine they are doing one of 2 things.
Flashing the boards with the PC firmware and soldering the XIOS as needed or
Flashing the i2s firmware on the boards with the XIAO soldered chip version.
I believe if you download the DFUtil utility and type DFutil -L it will list the device and firmware but I would have to double check. It's not going to hurt the board to flash the same firmware again. You plug it directly into the board to do this. Program it by plugging it into the XIAO for. ESPHome. What is the exact error you are getting? Depending on the error I might be able to decipher it.
good vid ! ...one question -- does this device also work to play sounds as a response to automations ? Like for example, I have a device I use to have HA automations play a sound to it when the automation is triggered, like when Alarmo is activated, or when the garage door opens... etc. Earlier Voice assistants (like the Raspiaudio speaker) could be setup to do either voice Assist, or sound notification playback, but not both with the same Yaml for some reason. Does the ReSpeaker do both ? Cheers!
Saw the video - bought it - waited 4 weeks or 10. Got it. Follow the instructions, thank you for being so clear Chris. But when I speak to it, it only listens for like a micro second and then goes off (The state in HA where you can see if the ASSIST is on or not). Any suggestions? Ah I had it on the cloud chat instead of local (NABU CASA subscription expired).
No bluetooth speaker support ?
Thanks Chris! We're getting closer to a drop-in replacement for cloud based voice assistants. Exciting times! Can't wait to ditch Google!
Its a long way off, the simple NS algs in the Respeaker ESP doesn't even match 1st gen commercial offerings. Unless the whole audio pipeline is connected and co-ordinated as a system it will be lack lustre even to early commercial variants.
The lack of opensource knowledge is blatantly on show and is just a continuation of the bluff and bluster of the likes of Mycroft or Rhasspy.
Hi Chris, Great video. Thanks. Do any of the other respeaker options have the ESP unit on board? I ask because I wonder whether some of the units with even more microphones may work even better and if I was willing to pay the extra I would also benefit from a good looking case. I would also appreciate if you could update on a solution for the LED.
I'm still confused, do I need to select the option for "with XIAO ESP32S3"? Bringing the total to ~$60?
audio quality?
Where is the long delay from the time you speak to the time the light goes on? There is another long delay after the light goes on and piper acknowledges the command was executed. Are these delays do to HomeAssistant?
Can a Home Assistant Yellow handle running all of these AI services, specifically Whisper?
Thank you Chris nice tutorial! Has anyone tried this in comparison to building this on the Raspberry Pi 2 W? I built one of these satellites using a ReSpeaker hat with the P2W and it was pretty laggy and not as accurate as I hoped. Has anyone built both and does the ESP32 version function better? I assumed the Pi 2W would perform better.
Sorry mate love your videos but I have to disagree on the product itself. Been playing with it for two months and Seeed Studio are not great at responding to your requests with their product. Installed it like you have but my findings are as follows:
Does not pick up voice better than another basic low cost voice assistant I built with basic digital mic. In fact performed worse.
Wake word when it works puts it into alert so displays the blue light and most of the time light turns red indicating poor connection apparently while being 2 meters from my router.
Does not update OTA with Yaml I copied from the page you did as well.
practically no support provided with repeat emails
btw not saying it does not work, just it works 2 in 10 tries.
My experience with it is combined. I have two pre-soldered kits, and they work flawlessly with microwakeword and my own firmware (including working LED). However, i also ordered two bare boards without S3 (wanted to use my own), and those aren't working at all even with Seeed examples.
Edit: now I have everything working with ESPHome, great device!
You mention WiFi but will this still work if the internet is down?
So long as your router still has power, your local network is till functioning. So... Yeah!
Has anyone sorted the Light problem.? Seed website RGB test shows GPIO1, which is the one used in the ESPHome file. You can also enable the light as a HA entity and see the GUI showing it turn on when when the voice assist is active. It doesn't turn off though!
I'm minded to upload the RGB test sketch to see if it actually works.
Edit: Well, I've just tried the RGB test and User Button Usage Sketches, compiled and loaded ok via the Arduino IDE and neither seem to work! No LED lighting up, no button press detection and no messages on the terminal.
The wiring diagram on the Seeed page seemed to show GPIO2 also doing something with the LED so I've tried setting that as the port in the ESPHome file but that didn't light the LED either.
wire a small/micro Potentiometer into the speaker wires..... or a couple resistors, non adjustable/fixed output
What about plugging in a speaker to the headphone jack?
I did this and it works great. Mind you, my speaker is powered. Not sure it would be loud enough with just a speaker.
Now to test it for distance and interference. Then we can get rid of Alexa!
Can it work using nabu-casa cloud instead of the local Faster Whisper/Piper?
Why not just ask "Hej Jarvis, lower volume 10%"?
Doesn't work like this on i2s speaker (which is there in Seeed code). Need to have media_player there.
Alexa and any other voice assistants are waaay faster in any way … this has not matured enough to even be considered for use