Hello everyone,
I wanted to share my experience with Seeed and their ReSpeaker Lite module to caution fellow Home Assistant users. In my opinion, the company’s customer service leaves much to be desired, and it’s important to highlight the issues I encountered.
Unexpected additional fees and lack of instructions
After waiting for more than three months, I finally received my pre-soldered ReSpeaker Lite module at home. However, Seeed failed to properly declare VAT on the shipment, which resulted in me having to pay an additional $29.2 in customs fees. This brought the total cost from around $35 to $70. This is the price of a proper voice assistant device, that can be used out of the box…
Upon opening the package, I was disappointed to find that there was no user manual or instructions included. You’re left to figure out how to mount the module on your own, and basic components like screws for mounting the speaker are not even provided.
So here is how it looks :
I stopped trying mounting it for now, as I don’t even see how to screw the speaker properly in this printed case…
Confusing documentation and cumbersome setup process
The online documentation is equally unhelpful. You’re left to guess how to properly set up the device: first, you have to flash the ReSpeaker using the USB-C port, then unplug it, connect it to the pre-soldered ESP, add it to ESPHome, unplug it again, and reconnect it to the ReSpeaker. This process is unnecessarily complex, and there are no clear step-by-step instructions.
After an hour trying to get it working, flashing the respeaker, and adding the ESP to ESPhome, I ended up with a partially assembled device and repetitive error messages in my ESPHome logs:
[13:37:55][V][api.connection:1530]: Cannot send message because of TCP buffer space
[13:37:55][VV][api.service:482]: send_voice_assistant_audio: VoiceAssistantAudio {
data: '
Lack of responsive customer support
When I reached out to Seeed’s support team regarding the customs fees… Unfortunately, they refused to offer any compensation for the additional fees incurred due to their mistake. Instead, they offered me a $5 coupon for a future purchase—but only if I left a positive review on the product. This seemed like a very unprofessional way to handle the situation. Only cheap Aliexpress sellers are offering such coupons to get fake positive reviews of their items.
Additionally, I tried seeking help on their Discord server, where their team was visibly online, yet no one responded to any user questions. It seems that customer support, both through email and on their community channels, is severely lacking.
Based on my experience, Seeed’s handling of this situation is far from professional. Their failure to declare VAT, the lack of basic instructions, the poor customer support, and the offer of a coupon in exchange for a positive review suggest that customer satisfaction is not a priority for them.
For those in the Home Assistant community, I would recommend exercising caution before purchasing from Seeed to avoid the same frustrations I experienced.
I will keep you gents posted about how things are going… But I annot say I’ve found here the ready to use, good working voice assistant hardware I was looking for.