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ESP32-S3 voice frontend

An ESP32-S3 voice frontend that keeps GPIO and network actions local.

Full build guide

ESP32-S3 voice frontend
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By Roman Zolotarev

View original on hackster.io
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Build sheet

Board
ESP32-S3
Other parts
INMP441 I2S mic, MAX98357A amp/speaker (Gerbers optional)
AI model or service
On-device wake word, Local VAD on the proxy server, cloud/enterprise or Google AI Studio LLM for intent, local function-calling agent
Difficulty
Intermediate

Overview

DIY ESP32-S3 + INMP441 + MAX98357A captures wake-word audio; a proxy server compresses the stream and runs local VAD, and a local voice-assistant binary runs webhooks, MQTT, GPIO, and shell exec while keeping network/GPIO away from the cloud model.

How it works

An ESP32-S3 with an INMP441 mic and MAX98357A amp handles the wake word and audio; a proxy server compresses the stream and runs local VAD before the model, and a local binary runs webhooks, MQTT, GPIO and shell actions while the model only sees intents.

Hardware

  • ESP32-S3
  • INMP441 I2S mic
  • MAX98357A amp/speaker (Gerbers optional)

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