Home Assistant Voice - Aux speaker

I purchased the Home Assistant Voice preview and have been attempting to figure out an aux speaker to enhance the sound and give it some personality.

I noticed when I plug in a non-powered speaker to the Aux the sound is great. If I plug in a self-powered speaker, a speaker that has it’s own power supply, I can hear some static, baseline static when the Voice Assistant is idle.

Non-powered speaker, a CB aux speaker off amazon.

Self-Power speaker - works but static, while the assistant is idle.

I tried another self-powered speaker that did the same thing.

I did noticed that they have two different Aux cord types.

I’m not sure if it’s the core type or that the speaker has it’s own power.

Any suggestions are appreciated. I think it brings some fun personality to have the BearBrick speaker for the Assistant.

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Feedback from poor grounding.
Does it occur with other devices?

Can you try another power plug for voice PE

Mono on left
Stereo on right

Example
Sorry. Only found eBay photo

Here is the one that currently works the best:

Here’s another one I tried that also had some static when the Voice PE was idle:

The BearBrick is used but seems to work fine with my android phone.

Apart from the ground loops mentioned above, your powered speakers are expecting a line level input. However the Voice PE outputs a low power speaker drive level which expects a low impedance load. The powered speaker is a high impedance load. This causes the input to the powered speaker to be a lot larger than required. The noise floor when idle will also be higher. Try turning the voice PE volume down very low and your powered speaker volume up.

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I started tinkering with it and changing volumne like you suggested. With the Bearbrick speaker, I didn’t plug in it’s USB power cord. It works. Seems it’s now just pulling power from the Voice PB. I believe it was just overpowering it like you indicated.

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Hello! I am using an old big powered speaker I had laying around my house with the voice PE and the static was bothering me so I investigated and I only found your post talking about it.

Just so I am able to understand, you were able to fix this by using a non-powered speaker right? Since those ones will not cause static noise, as @tom_l explained. Now I understand why my Android phone doesn’t make static noises with the speaker, but the voice PE does.

I tried playing with the volume on the voice PE and the speaker and was only able to remove the static when both have low volume, which defeats the purpose since I want to listen to music loudly.

Basically just wanted to make sure if the only solution is using a non-powered speaker.

Hi I have a somehow related question to this topic.
I connected a stereo speaker system to the audio output. the system works fine. however connecting in to the Voice PE I only get sound on one of the speakers. depending on the connection either left or right.
Any clue? Is my audio output defect?

No

The aux out from PE had noise present. When input into the powered speaker the noise was amplified. Turning down the PEs volume reduced the noise to an acceptable or negligible level.

Thats my understanding and expectation

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@thesmer
Yes,
Here is the speaker that works perfectly.

Cheap amazon speaker that works

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For what it’s worth, I have found that the power source matters. I had some ground humming but after trying different USB power bricks and wall sockets for the powered speaker and the Voice PE, I now have no noise.

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I did add these to the aux cables:

I found I got this speaker to also work:

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Hi everyone, I was using MuseLuxe for years but finally abandoned it because it’s so buggy and got Voice Assistant PE.

Generally I like it but the volume is super low. I am looking for a way to make it louder without external power supply. (in some sense, opposite to OP).

How much can VA PE drive? Does the speaker in this thread work well? Amazon.com: ZAXIDALER Rectangular External Communications Speaker for Ham Radio or CB & Scanners, 5 Watt, Black Colour : Electronics

How much louder can an external speaker without additional power supply get compared to the internal one?

PS: I am just using it for announcements (beeps and TTS), no music so quality is somewhat secondary

Not much

External amp with speaker is best.
Portable speaker connected with 3.5mm aux would be low cost.