I think your post suggests the answer is yes, but do you think the ESP BOX is hardware is a good long term bet? That is, do you see Willow as working with ESP BOX for the foreseeable future with whatever improvements are planned? Just wondering if it's worthwhile investing in the hardware now even if it doesn't currently quite do what I want.
Show HN: Willow – Open-source privacy-focused voice assistant hardware
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Re: Show HN: Willow – Open-source privacy-focused voice assistant hardware
#102Is there a kit to be purchased?
Re: Show HN: Willow – Open-source privacy-focused voice assistant hardware
#103I think your post suggests the answer is yes, but do you think the ESP BOX is hardware is a good long term bet? That is, do you see Willow as working with ESP BOX for the foreseeable future with whatever improvements are planned? Just wondering if it's worthwhile investing in the hardware now even if it doesn't currently quite do what I want.
Absolutely.
I cannot stress enough what a gift the ESP BOX and Espressif component libraries are to Willow. As anyone who's dealt with it can tell you wake word detection (while minimizing false wake) and getting clean speech with acoustic echo, background noise, etc from 30ft away is still a fairly hard problem. I've been pretty deep in this space for a while and I'm not aware of anything even close to approaching open source that is even remotely competitive with the Espressif SR+AFE implementations. The ESP BOX has also been acoustically tuned by Espressif to address all of the weird enclosure issues with audio. Their AFE+SR interface has been tested and certified by Amazon themselves for use in Alexa ecosystem devices. It's truly excellent.
Espressif has an excellent track record for VERY long term hardware and software support and if anything we're on the very early bleeding edge of what the hardware and software components are capable of. As one example, we're using the ESP SR wake and local command support released by Espressif last week!
Re: Show HN: Willow – Open-source privacy-focused voice assistant hardware
#104Is there a kit to be purchased?
That's the best part - the ESP BOX is not a kit. You take it out of the box, flash it, and put it on your kitchen counter or wherever you want.
The only challenge at this point has been interest in Willow. I've checked stock on ESP BOXes across various vendors and they are selling out.
However - Espressif has tremendous manufacturing capacity. From a review of the bill of materials for the ESP BOX as far as I can tell they don't make a lot of them because they haven't sold a lot of them. Until Willow, that is :).
We anticipate Espressif will ramp up manufacturing and crank these things out like hot cakes. No one wants another Rasperry Pi supply chain issue!
Re: Show HN: Willow – Open-source privacy-focused voice assistant hardware
#105Nice. Any bits of Mycroft in here? That project just imploded and I’m still sad about it.
Imploded?
Re: Show HN: Willow – Open-source privacy-focused voice assistant hardware
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really hope so, I've been waiting for good audio assistant hardware forever. I hope this is finally the time where I ditch Alexa once and for all, thanks for releasing Willow!
fwiw I found them in stock on adafruit.com
Thanks for the link. ~$66 with shipping, worth it to test out this project though.
Re: Show HN: Willow – Open-source privacy-focused voice assistant hardware
#107I’ve been living in a house for the past few months with a google assistant. I only use it to put on music, but I have noticed I play more music due to the ease of putting it on. But I hate the privacy invasion aspect. I’m definitely in the market for something like this. And this one looks great. Additionally, I’ve noticed that the google voice assistant (connected to Spotify) doesn’t keep playing the albums I ask f…
Music output is "on the list". Biggest fundamental issue is the speaker built in the ESP BOX is optimized for speech and not going to impress anyone playing music. That said, the ESP BOX (of course) supports bluetooth so we can definitely pair with a speaker you bring. Willow is the first of it's kind that I'm aware of to enable this kind of functionality at anything close to this price point in the open source ecosy…
Nice. I guess I don’t expect willow to cover the speaker element. I’d rather connect with my existing hifi / Bluetooth speakers.
But with google I’m stuck with their integration to Spotify. It’s that component I’d like control over, and that’s why I’d use willow.
That and not being spied on in my own home.
Definitely keen for one.
Re: Show HN: Willow – Open-source privacy-focused voice assistant hardware
#108It looks great, but also like it might need to mature a bit before it's usable for less advanced users like myself. Do you have an RSS feed or newsletter I can subscribe to so I'm reminded some time from now to check it out again?
Re: Show HN: Willow – Open-source privacy-focused voice assistant hardware
#109Is there a kit to be purchased?
That's the best part - the ESP BOX is not a kit. You take it out of the box, flash it, and put it on your kitchen counter or wherever you want. The only challenge at this point has been interest in Willow. I've checked stock on ESP BOXes across various vendors and they are selling out. However - Espressif has tremendous manufacturing capacity. From a review of the bill of materials for the ESP BOX as far as I can tel…
Well that's nice to know. Thanks for taking time to respond. The interest of repairability is there parts list? Will replacement parts be available to the end user?
Re: Show HN: Willow – Open-source privacy-focused voice assistant hardware
#110It looks great, but also like it might need to mature a bit before it's usable for less advanced users like myself. Do you have an RSS feed or newsletter I can subscribe to so I'm reminded some time from now to check it out again?
Thanks!
You're spot on - we're happy for anyone to test and use Willow but the intended users at this moment are early adopters that can build and flash as development is moving very, very quickly.
Unfortunately we do not, maybe try "watching" the repo on github?