Research on Hardware Options for Home Assistant Voice Assisstant

Home_Assistance_Voice_Hardware.md

Home Assistant Voice Hardware

Home Assistant now supports voice commands using some (?) microphones compatible with ESPHOME.

Off-The-Shelf Options

There have been two off-the-shelf hardware options, both of these are sold out (as of 28 Aptil 2024) and the ESP32-S3-Box-3 may no longer be manufactured.

1. Espressif ESP32-S3-BOX-3 - GitHub/espressif/esp-box
2. M5Stack ATOM Echo Smart Speaker Development Kit

Also of note, Espressif is now a majority owner of M5Stack.

Off-The-Shelf Hardware Analaysis

Espressif ESP32-S3-BOX-3

• Microcontroller: ESP32-S3
• RAM/ROM: 16MB of Quad flash and 16MB of Octal PSRAM
• Microphone Component: 2 MEMSensing Microsystems MSM381A3729H9BPC
  • Notes: omnidirectional, Top ‐ported, analog output MEMS microphone
  • Connection: Via the ADC as seen in the Sub Panel Schematic
• Analaog Digital Convertert (ADC): ES7210
• Speaker: NS4150

M5Stack ATOM Echo

• Microcontroller: ESP32 Pico D4 ESp32-Pico kit heardware reference
• RAM/ROM
  • 448 KB ROM
  • 520 KB SRAM
  • 16 KB RTC SRAM
• Microphone component: SPM1423 Pulse-Density Modulation (PDM)
  • Notes: Digitial, Silcon MEMS
  • Connection according to schematic in docs:
    • Clock: GPIO 33
    • Data: GPIO 23

ESPHome Notes

This "$13UDS Voice Remote HA post also covers installing ESPHome on the M5Stack Atom Echo.

ESPHome's documentaion on Microphone components shows the M5Stack Atom Echo as an i2s microphone.

DIY Component Notes

ESPHome Compatible Microcontrollers

PDM microphones are only supported on ESP32 and ESP32-S3. - ESPHome Docs

Microphones

• Adafruit PDM MEMS Microphone Breakout JST Connector