this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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How to intercept Assistant voice responses? (lemmy.d.thewooskeys.com)
submitted 8 months ago by mike_wooskey@lemmy.d.thewooskeys.com to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world
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I have some of the ATOM Echos that HA describes here. They work for voice recognition but the speaker in these tiny boxes is...tiny. It's barely audible when standing right next to the box, and completely inaudible when standing 10 feet away or if there is noise in the room.

Examples of the voice responses I'm talking about are "I'm sorry but I don't understand that" or "The current time is 2:15pm" or "I turned on the lights in the living room."

Is it possible to re-route the voice responses to a different media player? Currently, I have a Google Home Mini in each room that I have an ATOM Echo in. It would be nice if I could somehow determine which ECHO received the voice command, which area that Echo was in (e.g., "living room"), and then re-route the voice response to a media player in that area.

But I have no idea how to do this.

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[–] ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

My solution to the same problem was to disassemble the echo. Take the speaker output and wire it to a cheap amplifier (adafruit pam8302), and then wire that to a larger speaker in a 3d printed enclosure.

Only thing I wish I did was wire the shutdown pin to one of the extra pins on the echo to turn off the amplifier when nothing is being sent to the speaker.

[–] mike_wooskey@lemmy.d.thewooskeys.com 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

This sounds cool, but beyond my skill set. I might be able to re-qire the speaker wire to something else (possibly not if soldering is required), but I don't even understand what a "shutdown pin" is or what it does.

[–] ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 months ago

The amplifier has 7 connections. Input+ Input- Shutdown Power Ground Speaker out+ Speaker out-

You'll have to cut or solder the wires to the original speaker, then solder wires or pins to the amplifier,

It's not extremely difficult, but daunting if you've not done it before.

If you want to try, and need a lifeline feel free to DM me

[–] paf@jlai.lu 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Smart home junkie just made a video about it https://youtu.be/o3yZWD_sFIE

Will try that soon

[–] mike_wooskey@lemmy.d.thewooskeys.com 3 points 8 months ago

Smart Home Junkie's method worked perfect! And it was quite easy and quick. Thanks for the referemce @paf@jlai.lu!

[–] Cooljimy84@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm sure there is a better way, but I seem to remember there was a watch folder integration that you could use to watch the TTS folder and then play that new file on a speaker. Not sure how you could then play it on the correct speaker, and I'm sure someone else has a much better real solution than this

[–] mike_wooskey@lemmy.d.thewooskeys.com 1 points 8 months ago

I'll try to look into this. Thanks.

[–] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This might be a stupid answer, but a quick and dirty solution might be to stick the ATOM Echo inside a cup or other cone shaped object. I've done this at parties to make a phone's speaker appear to be louder.

[–] mike_wooskey@lemmy.d.thewooskeys.com 1 points 8 months ago

This sounds like it wouldn't help much, and whatever increase in volume might be offest by decrease in quality due to echo. But it's free to try (and within my skill set :) ).