Far field satellite with an Elegant 3d printed enclosures

[Alextrical (Ben Jackson)]

I know I’m late to the party, but have just started working on this project.

Looking at the ESP32-Korvo-V1.1 (and also ESP32-LyraTD-MSC), I believe this off the shelf currently produced product meets the needs of the project. They can currently be purchased for around $20
It’s hardware is fully documented and open source. It looks like it meets (or at least is very close to) the quality of existing commercial Voice assistants (Google Home/Alexa). (though I wold much rather that the device had a VPU (voice processing unit) with Acoustic Echo Cancelation) Maybe the ESP32-LyraTD-MSC could be a better alternative?

Circuit schematics can be found here:
ESP32-Korvo V1.1

The core parts I believe a polished voice assistant need to have:
-Far field voice detection, using a VPU and at least an array of 3 microphones
-Fast response time from Spoken intent to audio Response
-One wake, if multiple Satellites are in range of the wake word, only use the closest satellite to interface with.
-Context aware communication, the area a satellite detects communication should be able to infer commands. i.e. turn on the light
-An table top ready enclosure, 3D printable so no reliance on specific retail parts that aren’t available globally. I find 3D printed objects unpleasing on the eye, so this would be covered in a Speaker grille textile to provide a elegant finish
-LED feedback in the form of a Ring to provide feedback for the direction of intent being picked up from the array, and other statuses
-Music playback, the device should function as a DLNA media renderer
-A decent quality speaker and amplifier, able to render audio to a enjoyable quality and volume.

Optional extra goals:
-A flush mounted ceiling mount, and other mounting options. Possibly utilizing an Echo Dot v3 form factor to utilize the ecosystem of mounting options already available
-A couple of options for Microphone array layout, Circular is good for the Centre of a room, but Linear is good for against a wall (i.e. under a TV)
-Breakout for spare GPIO (if any) from the MCU/CPU to allow easy end user modification and customization
-Be compatible with multiple different self hosted Voice assistant systems, i.e. Willow, Rhasspy, etc
-Basic sensors, Lux, Humidity, Presence, Temperature, ETC (Room Temperature is probably not a good fit, as the interior of the unit will likely have poor air flow and generate heat)

I have 3 of these boards on order to work with, but if they don’t meet the needs of the project, I will get a new set of boards designed and tested.
Concept Case designs are being drafted, and will be posted here over the next couple of days. Expect multiple edits

[Alextrical (Ben Jackson)]

Concept renders, Do we need buttons for the user to change Volume/Mute?
I know that the shadows are wrong, I can’t set the light source in Fusion

[Alextrical (Ben Jackson)]

Flush ceiling mounted enclosure

Speaker grille harvested from a cheap 200mm unit, and held in place with magnets, resulting in no 3D printed plastic on display

[finity]

I like the idea so I’ll be watching.

But looking at your pictures it’s really hard to see black lettering on a black background.

[Alextrical (Ben Jackson)]

There’s no lettering on the case as of yet, as I haven’t worked out how best to achieve that yet.

There are 2 paths I can see to choose:
-make small buttons that push through the Textile into the frame below
-We can use a led and make a light guide to cast the symbol onto the textile, showing where to press
-remove the fabric from the top of the unit and have 3D printed plastic on show (easy but not visually pleasing)

[finity]

I was actually talking about the pictures of the schematics in the first post.

[Alextrical (Ben Jackson)]

Ah, I haven’t realized that was like that for other people, I was assuming it was my web browser. Will get that fixed in a couple of hours.
Photos where PNG with transparency, this resulted in the Web theme showing through. The pictures have now been converted to JPG with a white background. Thank you.

[thecodingart (Brandon)]

So I just picked up some ESP32-S3-Korvo-1 devices myself and am looking for a ceiling mount enclosure just like this.

Would you be able to post any final specs/designs if they end up fitting that guy, it’s pretty much spot on with what I want.

I’ll totally have them printed and give them a shot.

Amazon.com: ESP32-S3-Korvo-1 Development Board : Electronics

[Alextrical (Ben Jackson)]

I tried to attach the model files here, but it seems that’s not possible, so i just created a Printables model for the Echo Dot v3 mount

I will look at drafting up the Echo Dot V3 dimension enclosure for the Korvo, hopefully the V1 and V1.1 have the same dimensions Thank fully V1.1 and 1 V5 use the same dimensions. Just wish I had realized the V1.1 was an older version than Korvo 1

@thecodingart What speaker are you planning on using? i could create the model around that part too. From initial testing, it looks like a 2"/50mm speaker is just about the right size to fit in the Echo Dot v3 case dimensions under the 17.5mm chunkyness that is the Korvo stacked boards

[thecodingart (Brandon)]

Given the dimensions, I actually purchased this guy for an in ceiling mount: https://www.htd.com/dotkit_2

As for speakers, I’m just going to broadcast to my Sonos speakers. No hardwiring over complicated amp stuff required. (Or small dinky speakers onboard)

If I could get the board in an echo dot like enclosure, that would be another awesome step forward.

[Alextrical (Ben Jackson)]

I guess you can see where I got the inspiration for the design of the ceiling mount I designed. I felt like £70 was a bit too much just for a piece of plastic though.

If you aren’t using a internal speaker that will make initial designs easier (while I don’t have access to hardware or 3d models of the dev kit)
I will mockup a shim/encluser later today, to the Echo Dot V3 dimensions that should work

[will35]

Hi !

Having 2 ESP32-Korvo-V1.1 for month and i’m unable to use audio-out on this board.
How do you manage it ?

thanks

[Alextrical (Ben Jackson)]

Unfortunately I haven’t got a Korvo V1.1 board yet, hopefully @thecodingart will be able to advise, if they have managed to achieve audio output on the built in DAC.

Though i have ordered 5x ESP32 S3 N16R8 modules and intend to retrofit the Korvo V1 and ESP32-LyraTD-MSC, that I ordered not realizing that they used a much older chip than the ESP32 S3

I’m still feeling that i need to build a custom PCB that works how i believe it should (we don’t need batteries, but we do need a 3W+ amp, AEC and beam forming for far field voice) Just hope the Dev boards arrive in a couple of weeks to start testing things out

[Alextrical (Ben Jackson)]

Would something like this work for you?

It still needs a few ports for wires to get through from the PCB, Without a 3d model of the dev board, or my hands on one, its my best guess

[thecodingart (Brandon)]

Would this mostly just be a rest to screw in the board itself? If this would fit into the can, the board goes on top, and there’s a place for a mesh to go above, that should be perfectly fine. It would be nice to reveal the buttons (just in case), but given it’s on the ceiling that’s not a huge deal. Having a mesh or something transparent for the lights to show through would be important though and obviously you want to optimize the mics and remove any obstructions from them.

[thecodingart (Brandon)]

They are in the mail for me, so I don’t have my hands on them yet – although I do not plan on using any audio out ports on the boards themselves.

[Alextrical (Ben Jackson)]

The idea for your requirements of no built in speaker, would be to hold the microphone array as close to the speaker grille as possible, to allow the light to shine through while allowing unobstructed audio to be picked up.

Once your board arrives let me know what mounting methods you have available (i.e. M3 mounting posts) and I can change the design to suit

A couple of pictures of an earlier revision of the ceiling mount with an Echo Dot V3, though I would expect similar from the Korvo when in the 3d printed adapter

[thecodingart (Brandon)]

In my case, the Alexa like enclosure for the board is all that’s left!

Just got a few things today and have it working as a satellite.

[robertstanley83]

Nice project. I saw these at Mouser for around $50 and was wondering if they were worth using. I might try my luck at it. I not sure if you made a 3D enclosure? I thought of printing one out if I got the thing to work. Do you have any STL files of your model? Thanks.

[Alextrical (Ben Jackson)]

I was waiting for my board to arrive to confirm the dimensions where correct before making the design files public (I dislike the idea of anyone wasting plastic on my behalf)
The boards should be arriving in the next couple of days, ready for me when I get home from holiday on Monday. Give me a couple of days after that to get the embedded housing checked over, and the PCB mounting method worked out, and then I will get the textile coverd enclosure finished off and published (most likely by the end of that week/ Friday 22nd)