wilbowes/EchoMuse v2.17.0

EchoMuse v2.17.0

on GitHub

EchoMuse firmware v2.17.0

Private listening, pairing from the Echo, and an audible wake sound. Private listening and the on-Echo output chain need controller 2.25.0 or later; with an older controller the Echo keeps working exactly as before.

New

• Private listening. The Echo detects its own wake word and sends nothing until it fires, then only until you stop speaking. Choose it per Echo; the dashboard shows which each one is doing. Spec: docs/listening.md.
• Pair from the Echo. Hold the action button for 5 seconds, then approve it on the dashboard. An Echo the controller refuses shows orange with alternating lights.
• Wake sound. An optional tone when the Echo hears its wake word, at its own level, independent of the volume, for anyone who can't see the ring (#120). Volume is now applied in software with the DAC at unity.
• EQ, bass guard and limiter run on the Echo. A change is heard within about 40ms instead of after the ~5.5s of audio already buffered (#243).

Improved

• Echo cancellation starts from the echo path it saved last time, so the first reply after a restart is cancelled from its first second.
• Music ducks the moment the Echo hears its wake word, without waiting for the controller.
• Speech is detected with the Silero model instead of a loudness threshold, so a fan or TV no longer holds a turn open.
• Wakes are dated by when the audio was captured, so a lossy link can't split one utterance across two Echoes.
• The Bluetooth proxy pauses its scan while a voice turn needs WiFi and scans in short bursts while music plays (#643, #670).
• Each wake's loudness is logged, for later work on choosing the nearest Echo (#646).
• The Echo records the config it received and applied in /tmp/em-config.json, for release testing and support (#666).

Fixed

• Rhythmic clicking in the microphone stream, which caused speech recognition errors (#607).
• WiFi changes from the dashboard failed on emOS Echoes with "cannot write pending marker" (#632).
• On FireOS 6 kernels the mute light could get out of step with the mute after a reboot, including showing muted over a live mic (#662).
• A wake word spoken over a reply had to beat the full threshold for most of the reply; the lower barge-in threshold now lasts as long as the reply plays.
• server --version started a second copy of the server instead of printing the version (#611).

Known issues

• Music can drop out when a voice turn ducks it (#671).

Thanks

• @tvories asked for the wake sound (#120).
• @Jonoox reported the microphone clicking (#607), and @permissionBRICK found and fixed its cause in GoTinyAlsa.
• @Ahtran360 reported the emOS WiFi change failure (#632).

Soaked for 24 hours on four Echoes (FireOS 5, emOS 32-bit and 64-bit) with no errors logged. UAT report: https://github.com/wilbowes/EchoMuse/blob/main/docs/uat-results/2.25.0-ea.1.md