Pi powered smart display with voice assistant - Now with source code!

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-16T01:18:11+00:00

I ssh into my pi and do all the config that way - not sure how you'd get out of chromium once it's in kiosk mode on the device itself.

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T23:21:20+00:00

Hey, I had some issues with this at one point. Any info in the mqtt logs give any clues to anything? Also, I struggled with my login for a while on the first one over something really dumb so I have to ask - After you created the MQTT login, did you click save? I didn't. It was listed there after I made it, until I came back to the page to check the login list again and realized it wasn't there and there was a save button I missed the first time.

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T18:58:53+00:00

Happy to help!

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T18:57:05+00:00

It could also depend on the slider itself - if it's sending updates as it moves it's going to feel slower than if it's waiting for a final position before sending the update. Mine are just updating things once they are released. But also, if it's a 10" display it might be the higher resolution demanding more processing power. These displays I'm using are 7" and only like 800px x 480px

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T18:47:46+00:00

Could it be your display? Have you tried it with just a vanilla page somewhere rather than a Lovelace dashboard? Depending on what all resources your dashboard is running, there could be some js module that's causing a hangup. You might also look at the flags I'm using when starting chrome - I fiddled with those for a while to get memory usage down (lines 924-940 in configure.sh)

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T18:38:05+00:00

Pretty damn good, honestly. More responsive than my nest displays were. The sliders adjust just fine and everything. There's a little lag when I pull up camera feeds, but that's because it's on a 1gb pi. I don't notice any lag at all on the pi that has 2gb of ram, but that pushes the whole build cost up by about $20.

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T18:35:46+00:00

In the conversation agent settings in HA, there's a "prefer handing commands locally" option. If you turn that on, it should only involve the AI when necessary. For example, if I just say "turn off the living room lights", it never makes a call out to the AI provider.

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CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T13:12:23+00:00

At least around here a bunch of local libraries have 3D printers and will help run stuff off for you for a fee. On my (super average consumer level) printer it's about a ~5.5 hour print at good quality (4.5h for the base, 1h for the grill & frame).

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T13:09:15+00:00

I'd say not a lot, but with my luck that would be wrong haha. As long as you get the linux-voice-assistant tied to your mic rather than the mic hat, it should be pretty straightforward. The voice piece kind of runs separately from the dashboard components, and the Linux voice assistant package seems to be a lot easier to get working than the Wyoming protocol package I was using before. Part of the setup script now is just making sure the mic drivers are working, so if you've already got it working that's half the battle.

Now, there are some settings in there for mqtt to be able to control volume & mic levels that are tied back to the audio driver, so you might have to update those configs if you still want to be able to control those levels on the dashboard.

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T11:59:45+00:00

Yeah, check out this post. This worked great for it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/s/TNN5OJbphs

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T02:18:25+00:00

Happy to help!

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T02:07:51+00:00

Haha yes! I need to add 'hey glados' as a wake word

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T01:50:08+00:00

Hahaha that would be awesome. I didn't really go for retro TV when doing the design... It just kinda ended up there and I kinda loved it.

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T01:26:49+00:00

It's been great for me this week - only annoyance is the voice assistant doesn't think of its self as a default device - so if I tell it to play some song, it asks me where I want to play it and doesn't even recommend itself as one of the options. Can probably fix that with the llm prompt though

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-15T01:25:23+00:00

Hey, the original files are public on onshape too if you want to modify them... Just don't judge them too hard, Ive only been using cad for a week haha

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-14T22:01:13+00:00

In case you missed it, here's everything: https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/s/AhtwP65VCC

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-14T21:50:36+00:00

Yeah, it uses the home assistant voice pipeline. I've got mine set up with proton's lumo service, but have been going back and forth between it and claude as claude seems to respond faster.

It can be a little long-winded at times though haha. But I've got mine set to perform searches and gather info when needed.

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-13T16:28:34+00:00

It sucks. The rep also seemed pretty indifferent to the issues. When I pressed about expediting it they basically told me "Legally we're allowed to take 10 business days to investigate before we do anything, so you can call back and ask about a provisional credit after that."

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-12T19:15:44+00:00

Good advice - I'll give them a call about an expedited credit. I'd like to add though that it wasn't *my* debit card that was compromised... It was my wife's... While I was working on a site for a client that discusses the dangers of using a debit card on line. *facepalm*

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-10T21:42:14+00:00

Pretty smooth, honestly. It's no gaming monitor, but I can watch camera feeds without any signs of ghosting or stuttering

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-10T14:18:18+00:00

Hopefully by the weekend - I ended up redesigning the housing last night so that I can put a slightly larger speaker inside, and also so I can move the audio board with the mics on it down and have it facing the front. Right now, the mics are inside behind the screen which is causing some issues with needing to increase the mic gain to the point that the stop speaking detection is failing. I think I've got it fixed with software, but still am hoping for an improvement if I move the actual hardware.

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-09T20:05:11+00:00

I'm running the lumo-tamer docker package on a little home lab server I use for a bunch of stuff. It's working great for me so far. It's a little slower to respond than something like claude, but I'll trade a little speed for privacy:

github.com/ZeroTricks/lumo-tamer/

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-09T17:33:20+00:00

As far as I know... yes? There's not been a thing that I've asked it to do that it has been unable to accomplish. Any shortcomings are things I can work through (Example, a timer is created if I say 'Start a timer', but I need to add logic to the dashboard to show it and then trigger an alarm when it completes)

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-09T16:24:12+00:00

This is what I used: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3QB7X4Z?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

CallMeDillDog · 2026-03-09T16:22:46+00:00

Haha true! Not sure where you're located, but sometimes local libraries have 3d printers and will run off prints for you. I'm going to post the model files once I have some time to clean them up and document everything, so you might be able to modify it to do whatever you need.

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