What's the current options for using an Onju Voice?

Hardware
1

I have the boards, but I can’t install firmware because there are errors. I really don’t have a good understanding of what’s going on, but here’s the error:


INFO ESPHome 2025.7.5
INFO Reading configuration /config/esphome/onju-voice-a1d3f4.yaml...
Failed config

light.esp32_rmt_led_strip: [source /config/esphome/onju-voice-a1d3f4.yaml:370]
  platform: esp32_rmt_led_strip
  id: leds
  pin: GPIO11
  chipset: SK6812
  num_leds: 6
  rgb_order: grb
  
  [rmt_channel] is an invalid option for [light.esp32_rmt_led_strip]. Please check the indentation.
  rmt_channel: 0
  default_transition_length: 0s
  gamma_correct: 2.8

After some searing, I found that you no longer specify the channel in the yaml anymore but commenting that line out leads to compile failure. Is there a current config that works?

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2

I am having the same issue have you found a way to get this working because I have four of these and haven’t figured it out

3

tetele used to maintain an ESPHome config for the Onju Voice but you should be aware that the original Onju Voice uses an outdated hardware design so performance/experience is not good:

FYI, slightly off-topic but hope it is OK that I post a post link to this other thread for discussion possibility of someone created new/updated “Onju Voice” circuit board open.source designs for drop-in PCB replacement for existing Google Nest Mini and Google Home Mini speakers as think could be of interest to same people who are looking for this type hardware solution:

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4

Hey Ed,

had the same problems when i wanted to update the pod to esp 2025.x to resolve state an audio problems.

the errors occur because of a wrong declaration of byte type. for arduino that must be uint8_t instead of byte.

this decleration is found somewhere aroun line 480 and looks like

static byte thresh_indices[3] = {0, 0, 0};
static byte qsizes[3] = {0, 0, 0};

when byte is replaced with uint8_t the code compiles.

there where more errors but i think these were all related.

5

Late to this thread, but I recently dusted off my Onju Voices and wrote a new native ESPHome config for them. Works with ESPHome 2026.3+, no external dependencies. Supports wake word, full voice pipeline, media playback, timers, touch controls — the works.

The shared I2S bus is still a limitation (can’t listen and play simultaneously), but the firmware handles it transparently. It’s been working well on my two devices.

Supports dashboard_import so you can adopt it directly from the ESPHome dashboard after the first USB flash.

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