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ESP32-S3 Home Assistant voice satellite

An ESP32-S3 voice satellite that answers faster than Alexa.

Full build guide

ESP32-S3 Home Assistant voice satellite
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By Yadullah Abidi

View original on makeuseof.com
Posted

Build sheet

Board
ESP32-S3 N8R8
Other parts
INMP441 mic, MAX98357A amp, 4Ω speaker, 8x8 WS2812B matrix
AI model or service
microWakeWord on-device, Wyoming faster-whisper + Piper + Ollama (Gemma4:e2b / Qwen 3.5 4B) on home server
Runs offline?
Yes, per the source
Difficulty
Intermediate

Overview

ESP32-S3 N8R8 satellite with INMP441 + MAX98357A + WS2812B matrix runs ESPHome/microWakeWord and feeds a fully local HA Assist pipeline (faster-whisper, Piper, Ollama Gemma/Qwen) with ~2s warm-cache replies.

How it works

ESPHome and microWakeWord on an ESP32-S3 feed a local Home Assistant Assist pipeline: faster-whisper, Piper and an Ollama model on a home server.

Hardware

  • ESP32-S3 N8R8
  • INMP441 mic
  • MAX98357A amp
  • 4Ω speaker
  • 8x8 WS2812B matrix

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