Show HN: Babytalk: Offline speech to text and text to speech on ESP32(github.com)
3 pointsby tlackan hour ago1 comment
  • atmanactivean hour ago
    I was hoping this could be a hardware STT-to-HID, but, even after looking at the Git ReadMe, I still don't understand how is the text supposed to exit the device?
    • tlackan hour ago
      It's a library for C / Micropython / AtomVM, so you could send the result over a lora radio, ESPNOW, WAN, match it in a switch statement to activate a relay, draw on the LCD.. that's up to you.

      Many ESP32S3 dev boards have a microphone and speaker header available conveniently on the board, so I have been using that to respond via Babytalk's text to speech capability.

      I'll improve the README to make it a little more clear.

      • atmanactive39 minutes ago
        Thank you for the explaination. So it is a library and would require someone to adjust it to their use case. That's what got me confused: wide open use case, but nothing tangible. I mean, if an ESP device is doing STT+TTS, then what am I supposed to be talking to? But if it is an ESP device that can do ANY->TTS and/or STT->ANY with some code customization needed, then I think I get it.
        • tlack25 minutes ago
          I wrote the README from the perspective of being understandable by the lay person, and I think I left out some vital clues about this being a software building block for making your own ESP32 projects more intelligent. I pushed a README update to make it 0.1% more clear.

          As for what to talk to.. or the ultimate purpose lol.. you could do simple device control scenarios ("lights off"), do hands-free sensor readings ("temperature at 95 degrees"), change wifi settings via voice ("switch access points"), etc.

          I use it to control an agent-powered diverse device sensor network in my home and my truck. Much of the capability needs Internet access, but having on-device speech to text and text to speech means I can still do some stuff when I didn't bring the Starlink with me. On-device STT opens up a lot of low bandwidth (lora) opportunities too.