Notes on building and setting up a Home Assistant Local Voice Assistant.

Prebuilt Solutions

Device	Notes	Cost	TODO
Atom Echo	EXTREMELY quiet speaker. Acceptable as microphone-only and development. Minimal specs causing issue in ESP Home updates	$14
Atom EchoS3R	Assumed significantly better than the base Atom Echo	$15	Need to test. Expected fixed updates and better speaker/mic.
Home Assistant Voice PE	Generally poor quality speaker for the price. Native device with priority support/development - though less open/clear (?).	$69

"Custom" Hardware

A "custom" solution may generally be preferred. Price to performance should be considerably better at ~$35-50 per device (less if parts are already had). Being Linux based, it'll be more flexible. For example, a monitor can be hooked up as a home display or camera feed or a an LCD display module like the LCD1602 as a basic clock.

Platforms

Device	Notes	Cost
Raspberry Pi 0 V1	Untested. When Wyoming was used, this wasn't working - but hopefully is resolved with the migration to Linux Voice Assistant RasPi OS Lite's wifi is broken.	$16
Raspberry Pi 02	Target device. Less frequently in stock.	$20

Speakers

Device	Notes	Cost
701715519671	Minimal footprint	$2.50
701715519664	Effectively the same size as the Pi-Zero. Negligible better sound	$2.50
701715520462	Significantly better audio than the other DWEII speakers, though much larger.	$3.50

Audio Driver

Device	Notes	Cost
Waveshare WM8960 Audio Hat	Arrives with Stereo version of the 701715520462 Has male header pins, allowing for an added screen or other added above.	$19
Keyestudio ReSpeaker	ReSpeaker V1	$8
reSpeaker 2-Mics Pi HAT V2.0	ReSpeaker V2. Distinguish V1 from V2.. Advertises higher quality output.	$14

Cases

TODO: Cases for Pi/Driver combos to be created and uploaded - or linked

Software Components

Base OS

• Raspian / Raspberry Pi OS

Music Client / Receiver

A key expectation for a home speaker system is the ability to play music in sync across multiple devices.

SnapCast Client

• Setup/Configured with the script TODO
• Older, mature platform.
• TODO: Does it allow for delay adjustments?
• Unsupported:
  • Home Assistant Voice PE
  • ESP32-based devices
  • Non-Debian Linux Distros

SendSpin

• Has a Python implementation so it should generally be cross-platform.
• Unsupported:
  • ESP32-based devices (yet? It's supported on HA Voice PE)
  • Android Client (yet. Python solution made with AI Slop should be quickly spun up)

Voice Assistant

Linux Voice Assistant

Interfaces via ESPHome protocol to Home Assistant.

Wyoming (deprecated)

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Old Docs

Budget (untested)

Device	Ideal Cost
Raspberry Pi 0W	$16
ReSpeaker 2-Mic	$8
MicroSD	$3
Case	$1
Speaker	$3
USB Charger and MicroUSB cord	$3
---------------------------------------------------------------------------	-----------
Total	$34

Typical

Device	Ideal Cost
Raspberry Pi 02W	$20
reSpeaker 2-Mics Pi HAT V2.0	$14
MicroSD	$5
Case	$1
Speaker	$4
USB Charger and MicroUSB cord	$3
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------	------------
Total	$47

Notes:

1. The Raspberry Pi 0W is untested, but should (hopefully) work with the shift from Wyoming to Linux-Voice-Assistant.
2. It seems the reSpeaker 2-Mics Pi HAT V2.0 is supposedly higher audio quality for $14 ($12 bulk) instead.