Note: I do not have the skills to comment oon the electrical especially KiCad site.
But imo even if the pcb would be a bit more complex it would be great having one that fits both devices and also having just one ESPHome project to be maintained.
Regarding the powering iirc the Satellite1 by Brad/FutureProofHomes can still be used by a dump 5V power source but to reach its full potential it requires a pd capable psu - maybe this can be implemented and would still work with the gen2 dump 14V?
Year after the onjuvoice release I bought some working and defective devices too:
On the working side is a Nest Audio, Nest Mini and a Home Mini (Āµusb plug broke apart and was stuck in the device) and on the defective side I have a pineapple G home, a Nest mini (my first onju) and a home mini.
But I did not used the working ones yet.
And to not forget I own one HA VPE.
Another option that could maybe be to add a USB-C port with both data and USB-PD (Power Delivery) support on the side where it could fit both Gen1 + Gen2 and force the user to drill a new hole in enclosure if they want to use that, though that would not be optimal from a reuse point as it would mean users would need to use an adapter if they want to use their old power-supply.
If so then you would always have the option to flash it via USB without opening the enclosure again as well as have the option to power it via a modern USB-C-PD charger.
I believe that is probably a non-issue as you as can probably use just the exact same ESPHome project for different boards regardless because they should only differ in how they are powered.
That is, I think that as long as different boards use the exact same pins for all output and inputs (for the ESP32 and the XMOS chip) then you should be able to use the exact same firmware.
Now that Iāve seen the PCB of the Google Home Mini V1, a potential modification came to mind before my own PCB goes into production.
With a few layout adjustments, it might be possible to make my project compatible with both Mini V1 and V2 variants ā but this would depend on two key conditions:
It would only work with a new custom FPC cable, since I canāt reasonably expect anyone to desolder and reattach the original flex. This means Mini V1 users would face an extra cost and setup step, and both the USB board and the main PCB would require ZIF connectors.
I would need the pinout of the original Mini V1 FPC, as the routing on the new PCB side depends entirely on that information. Without it, thereās no way to implement this cleanly.
At this point, please donāt take this as a confirmed feature ā this is just an idea, a feasibility check, and a call for information gathering.
That said, Iām not ruling it out. If the necessary data becomes available and the layout changes remain manageable, then supporting both models could make the project accessible to a wider group of users ā even if it complicates the design a bit more.
I for one am willing to donate money to you imike78 (or someone else with the skills to figure all that out) even if it would just mean you could do buy a few Google Home Mini (1st gen) from example eBay or other resellers that might sell new old stock (NOS) of them to expiment on:
Would I like to sponsor this project, YES!
Would I like to repurpose my Google Home/Nest thingies, YES!
Would I be willing to dismantle my thingies to test, YES!
Would I like to pay the price PCBWay wanted to charge for the Anju PCB (in small quantities), erm no.
Would I act as distributor for a local (to UK) mass purchase, very likely!
Iām currently using the speaker from a Google Home (V1) as a speaker for my Voice PE, much better than the Voice PE speaker for listening to music. Not a very neat solution though having two small devices with a trailing cable.
I tried the speaker with and without the enclosure and not surprisingly much better performance when in the enclosure.
FYI, iMike78 is requesting help or tips regarding converting XMOS firmware files that was built for the Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition hardware and manually flashing those to the XMOS chip on this new board, so if you have any advice on that then please join the discussion here:
As I understand he is first asking if it is possible to convert the prebuilt XFLASH created binary files in the XTC flash format available from the Home Assistant Voice PE project into a standard BIN format that can be flashed with other tools? That is, anyone here have any tips on how to convert or build XMOS firmware to make it possible to flash an XMOS chips with standard JTAG adapter and other tools than buying their XTAG adapter and using XMOSās XFLASH tool? If not then how to best flash XMOS firmware to the new board? Perhaps he even needs to build a new firmware for the new board?
Quote:
Iāve been trying to get support from the original Home Assistant Voice PE project regarding the XMOS .bin firmware, but unfortunately havenāt received any response despite submitting a request several days ago.
So now Iām reaching out to you ā my followers and anyone whoās interested in low-level firmware and XMOS-based systems.
I already have the compiled .xe file from the original project. What I need is help converting this .xe file into a .bin file suitable for direct SPI flash programming. This would allow:
Flashing the firmware without requiring an XTAL4 or XTAG debugger,
Making the board production-ready (e.g. PCBWay/assembly houses could pre-flash it).
If anyone here has experience with XMOS tools (e.g. xflash, xburn, or xmake workflows), or knows how to generate a .bin from .xe, your help would be greatly appreciated.
For more background information please see this discussion thread:
Slightly off-topic, however, from a design inspiration and concept only point-of-view it maybe be a good idea to look at how a XMOS XTAG debug pad and external IO pins can be exposed on this new upcoming ReSpeaker round circuit board that Seeed Studio has announced for pre-sale:
While this board will obviously not fit the Google Nest Mini or Google Home Mini just beause it is round, I do however believe it shows a concept where there could perhaps be possible to feature both a 4-mic circular array as well as some debug/GPIO pads for the XMOS chip for XTAG-4 debug adapter (XMOS JTAG debugging) on a somewhat similar round board.
The point being it that firmware loading and debug access should preferably alays be possible via an XMOS standard XSYS2 connector which supports the XTAG4 debug adapter on these boards:
Note that this new board from Seeed will be based on the XMOS XVF3800 chip instead of the XU316 chip, which might be better suited for voice capture and smart speaker use cases if it also supports open-source firmware?
PS: For discussion about ReSpeaker XMOS XVF3800 ESPHome integration see this thread:
FYI, iMike78 has now also started working on a replacement PCB for the first-generation Google Home Mini as well, check the GitHub repository for that as a separate project, check it out here:
Again, getting PCB prototypes manufactured cost a lot of money consider at least donating some coffee money to iMike78 to show you appriciate his work on both these two projects:
The point is that for power during normal operation you will be able to use the original power-supply that shipped with the device. The extra USB-C will just be used for powering just the PCB as a stand-alone during a one-time initial firmware flashing which should be done before you physically install it, (that is the only time you do use it for power and at that time you should not connect any other power-supply as you can not have two at the same time).
Other than opening it up to replace the circuit board you should not need to make any modifications to the enclosure as you will be using the original power-supply once the new PCB is mounted inside your mini speaker.
So that means that after installation you only use the Micro-USB power-supply that shipped with the first-generation which is called āGoogle Home Miniā for power if that is the model that you got, or if you have the second-generation model which is called āGoogle Nest Miniā then you will instead use the the barrel-jack connector power-supply that shipped with it for power.
I have one Mini with PCB replaced. I have been playing with it some time ago but never used it. Now looking back at it, and I can see it doesnāt compile with latest ESPHome. What is currently the best ESPHome config for Onju Voice PCB? I still have 4 PCB to replace all my Minis with, but first I wish to get this one working and be happy with it.
@thehijacker this thread is not about the Onju-Voice PCB so your question asking for help with Onju-Voice support is actually off-topic here. Please re-read the original post at the top of this thread and you should see that this thread is about an alternative PCBs with newer designs and other components than the Onju-Voice. So if you still are still just looking for help with your Onju-Voice PCBs then you need turn to that projectās repository on GitHub which has its own diacussion section (where people has posted relevant links and such). There is otherwise a seperate forum thread about the original Onju-Voice here ā Onju Voice - "Recycling" Google Home/Nest Mini (Gen2)
