"OK Nabu" Wake Word Reliability for Non-Native Speakers in Home Assistant Voice Preview

neu · April 29, 2025, 9:29am

As a non-native English speaker, I’ve encountered some challenges with the “OK Nabu” wake word.

The wake word work1. s well with my voice (adult male)
2. My daughter can trigger it by emulating a deeper, more masculine voice
3. My wife and young son struggle to activate it consistently
4. We’ve found “Hey Jarvis” to be even more difficult to use

I’m wondering if there’s a way we, can contribute to improving the on device “OK Nabu” wake word model, especially for non-native speakers and different voice types (women, children, etc.).

Thanks!

Fugazzy · April 29, 2025, 12:47pm

We do experience the same issues . . .

mchk · April 29, 2025, 5:38pm

Try using the older summer model (trained on less data), it’s like it’s more loyal to the pronunciation.
The latest version of the model contains an obvious pronunciation feature, it requires putting the accent on the second syllable, and I had to adapt to that. But it has almost no false positives, which is a plus.

You will need to find this line and replace it with the address

github.com/esphome/home-assistant-voice-pe

home-assistant-voice.yaml

7f5aaf00f


      
              refresh: 0s
          
          audio_dac:
            - platform: aic3204
              id: aic3204_dac
              i2c_id: internal_i2c
          
          micro_wake_word:
            id: mww
            models:
              - model: https://github.com/kahrendt/microWakeWord/releases/download/okay_nabu_20241226.3/okay_nabu.json
                id: okay_nabu
              - model: hey_jarvis
                id: hey_jarvis
              - model: hey_mycroft
                id: hey_mycroft
              - model: https://github.com/kahrendt/microWakeWord/releases/download/stop/stop.json
                id: stop
                internal: true
            vad:
            microphone: comm_mic

But a positive result is not guaranteed

lazza · April 30, 2025, 7:05am

Not helpful at all but personally i feel everytime i say “ok nabu” that im going to interupt some african tribesman in the bush from spearing his dinner. i know why they have it but what a silly wake word. Hopefully one day there will be a hey_janet or hey_some other female name to match a female voice. Currently i use hey Jarvis cause its the only wakeword that triggers for me but then i get a female voice, In this day and age i just assume shes a “they”