Strange hiss in my Voice Assistant PE

Configuration Voice Assistant
1

One of my four voice assistants makes a strange hiss, relatively quiet but clearly audible, when it’s sitting idle. None of the others (three more) make this hiss. It’s not affected by the volume setting either. It just so happens to be the assistant in my bedroom, so this is really bothering me.

Any pointers to help me debug the matter?

Thanks.

2

Internal speaker or is it plugged into something?

3

Only internal speaker.

To me it looks like the amp is somehow always running. To my understanding it’s supposed to shut the amp off when it’s not playing anything. I even get this in the ESPHome log:

[17:55:47][D][power_supply:048]: Disabling power supply.

EDIT: I have verified the Disabling power supply message appears in the log every time I am done interacting with the device. So it’s trying to turn something off! Or perhaps that’s related to the light. I wouldn’t know – the message doesn’t appear in main.cpp.

EDIT 2: the power supply thing is related to the lights, not the amp. Womp womp womp.

1 Like
4

If you have a portable USB Battery pack, maybe plug the VPE into it to see what happens … just wondering if the USB power is a bit noisy.

5

Hm good point! I’ll try tomorrow.

6

Whaddya know! I unhooked the Voice Assistant PE from the current power supply and hooked it into both an Anker battery and an Anker USB charging station… and in both cases the hiss was gone!

Thanks for the suggestion!