Inspired by this post: Voice Assistant with IKEA SOLSKYDD and Respeaker Lite - #6 by Skyman1
I also saw this for the smaller Vappeby: Retrofitting IKEA VAPPEBY speaker into Music Assistant player (and more!) - #2 by nickrout
The big square vappeby has amazing sound for the size and price. It sounds a bit better than the Solskydd and it was a little easier to modify, too.
Opening the speaker is easy. There are a few screws on the back behind the rubber caps. You then need to pry the front off carefully.
The inside has lots of room for additional devices:
I soldered wires to the 18v and ground pins
Connected to my step down converter (to get 5v for a Respeaker Lite)
The other end was connected to some sold cat 6 wiring since that’s all I had, and it’s fine for a short length of 5v at a low amperage.
You then need to adjust the converter to get 5v, ensuring you do this with your wires (and not directly onto the board) to factor any voltage loss over those wires.
Once happy with that, connect to your Respeaker Lite and power it on to make sure you haven’t shorted anything
Next up is to mount the Respeaker. It fits behind the battery bay:
To ensure the holes are in the correct spot, you can cut out a stencil from some paper. Make sure you remember which side is the front and which side is the back.
You need to remove some of the structural supports to make it flat, so you can try keep the speaker somewhat airtight, and have the microphone stick out a little bit.
You then need somewhere for your 3.5mm wire to exit, so it can be plugged in. I used a male-to-female extension and placed it through the foam to try keep it somewhat airtight:
I used hot glue to hold the Respeaker Lite in place, mostly because it’s easier and I won’t be using the buttons so it should stay in place easily.
Mounting the step down converter was a little less elegant. I just placed a 4mm bolt and nut through the back.
All done! Sounds and looks good to me. I just need to find or print a cover for the front.
The formatBCE repo was what I used for ESPHome, although instead of applying the template in the repo I just used the code directly. This means I won’t get automatic updates, but I was able to adjust the gain and sensitivity of the microphones so it detects my voice perfectly.
I had to use the below settings:
voice_assistant:
id: va
microphone:
microphone: i2s_mics
channels: 0
gain_factor: 10
media_player: external_media_player
micro_wake_word: mww
use_wake_word: false
noise_suppression_level: 0
auto_gain: 20 dbfs
volume_multiplier: 1
Make sure you adjust the gain_factor under micro_wake_word, too!
Hope this helps, and thanks for the inspiration @Skyman1
