This is my entry for the Voice Assistant contest. I found an old Emerson AM radio in a house that was about to be torn down. I liked the look of it, so I decided to turn it into a voice assistant.
I custom designed and printed the internal shelf and back cover. I also designed a cool little sticker for it.
There is a steel plate attached to the underside of the top, for touch-to-talk functionality. You click the button on the right-side rotary encoder to toggle wake word detection.
The rotary encoder on the left controls the brightness of the LEDs. Clicking it in toggles the “WLED” effect, which I use with LEDfx for audio-reactive lighting effects.
Hardware Used:
- ESP32
- INMP441 (Mic)
- UDA1334A (DAC)
- SPST Momentary normally open button
- WS2812B LEDs (I used 6 rings, 93 LEDs total)
- 2x Rotary Encoder
- 12V to dual 5V buck converter
- Mending plate (for the touch functionality)
- Small set of computer speakers
Demo Videos:
Touch to Talk:
Wake Word:
More information, photos, and a video of the audio reactive lights are on my blog at https://blog.slacktish.com/projects/vintage-radio-voice-assistant/
