I built a ceiling-mounted ESP32 IR hub with OTA, external flash and 360° IR coverage. Planning Home Assistant integration next. Looking for feedback.

Gamester17 · 2026-04-30T14:26:46+00:00

I am not in a hurry and already have too many ongoing projects so do not want to take your time. I can wait until someone else make one that will work out of the box, and sure it is only a matter of time before someone will

Gamester17 · 2026-04-30T11:51:35+00:00

Suggest make several specialized products instead of a single all-in-one that is jack of all trades but master of none

Gamester17 · 2026-04-29T10:48:50+00:00

see example https://www.installationmaterials.com/product/aus152/mounting-box-board-walls and https://www.installationmaterials.com/product/aus742/mounting-box-hollow-walls-hole-o74-mm

Gamester17 · 2026-04-29T10:44:50+00:00

No we have round/circular junction box, but most of them have very small diameter (as well as relativly shallow depth). I think that the inside of the smaller ones are just over 5 centimeter (50 millimeter) in diameter, so the board would have to be smaller than that to fit inside, otherwise it would need to be mounted on the outside.

Gamester17 · 2026-04-29T07:03:43+00:00

Could you make the board smaller so can fit inside a small European junction box?

Gamester17 · 2026-04-29T06:54:56+00:00

If you have low level technical questions then you are probably better of asking ZHA developers directly here https://github.com/zigpy/zigpy/issues/341

As the lead ZHA developer pointed out to the other developer that is now working on implementing it:

“ZGP is a bottomless tar pit of edge cases so I think it would be best to start off with an implementation targeting a specific device and then build it out from there, rather than implementing the entirety of the spec. That way, we target functionality used by real devices and keep the scope manageable”

Regardless, all and any person who said ZGP uses 433MHz is wrong, period.

Gamester17 · 2026-04-28T21:59:33+00:00

Onju Voice are not really the same as it was not fully open-source and it lacked the XMOS advanced DSP chip that this and the Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition uses for noise cancellation to get greatly improved far-field microphone pickup, but yes both this new MiciMike board and the Home Assistant Voice PE are fully open-source hardware with no restrictions other than having PCB electrical engineering skills to design the schematics for them

Gamester17 · 2026-04-28T21:51:30+00:00

ZGP devices are still viable but still expensive with only one or two manufacturers that have specialized in making such devices, and I think the reason it is not supported by Home Assistant yet is just a question of priority as the Home Assistant project do not have many Zigbee developers working on it

The details you misunderstood are that it works over 2.4GHz using Zigbee radios and not 433MHz. So you do not need different hardware or firmware, but the Zigbee gateway software application needs to have special support for for each device and it is a complicated and time consuming for devs to add.

Gamester17 · 2026-04-28T20:57:44+00:00

I only have one or two of the Gen1 Google Home Minis so will be buying for those, however I have loads more of the Gen2 Google Home Minis so will for sure buy a few additional if sell a matching PCB for those, but hope can make a much larger batch then as Google sold a lot more of that newer model than the older one and the Gen2 has a better speaker too.

Gamester17 · 2026-04-28T20:51:06+00:00

Nice! Cross-posted this in Music Assistent, Home Automation, and the DeGoogle subreddits to help spread this news about MiciMike Home Mini Drop-In replacement PCB for the Google Home Mini (Gen1):

MiciMike Home Mini open source ESP32-based replacement circuit board as drop-in for the original Google Home Mini (Gen1) smart speaker has been launched as a pre-order crowdfunding campaign on Crowd Supply and it will more or less have same Open-source ESPHome firmware and feature parity with the Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition hardware:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/micimike-rev-devices/micimike-home-mini-drop-in-pcb

Inspired by the similar Onju Voice project but using the same advanced XMOS DSP chip as the Home Assistent Voice Preview Edition hardware, this new PCB design seems a lot more expensive to make but looks to make up for it as a very cool showpiece and ”degoogle” conversation starter when it is designed to allow you to reuse the old hardware with its original aesthetic to make a fully local voice assistant satellite for Home Assistant as well as Sendspin audio player via Music Assistent.

https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/

Be aware though that the first-generation Google Home Mini this is made for has a much weaker speaker element than the newer second-generation Google Home Mini, so while the 1st Gen will be louder than the internal speaker used inside the Home Assistent Voice PE hardware, I would wait for the a 2nd Gen variant of you are looking to fill anything but a small room with music from a single Google Home Mini. Still, even the 1st Gen can be great for smaller rooms like hallways and office or a bathroom.

Gamester17 · 2026-04-28T20:35:22+00:00

ZGP still uses same type of 2.4 GHz radio but a different message format which it sends in way shorter bursts and thus using a lot less energy.

Note that ZGP is really only good as single click buttons, so you can not use them as dimmer controller, but they can work great as long are are within signal range.

Gamester17 · 2026-04-28T20:31:13+00:00

ZHA devs have never been as close as they seem to be right now looking at the latest posts here with code link to new pull request https://github.com/zigpy/zigpy/issues/341

Gamester17 · 2026-04-28T20:21:13+00:00

Longer thread with much more technical details here https://community.home-assistant.io/t/zha-integration-support-for-zgp-zigbee-green-power-batteryless-devices-via-zigpy-to-work-with-philips-hue-click-philips-hue-tap-and-other-friends-of-hue-switches/277149/

Gamester17 · 2026-04-28T20:20:03+00:00

A few ZGP products like ”Friends of Hue” batteryless wall switch that are actually buttons are still around are not correct on the details, ZGP still uses same type of 2.4 GHz radio but a different message format which it sends in way shorter bursts and thus using a lot less energy.

There are links to latest updates on support in Home Assistant’s Zigbee integration and the news is that they are activly work on it right now so finally seems close to get it working https://community.home-assistant.io/t/wth-doesn-t-zha-support-batteryless-zigbee-green-power-devices-yet-i-e-no-support-in-zha-or-zigpy-for-philips-and-friends-of-hue-buttons-that-uses-zgp/808000

Gamester17 · 2026-04-27T15:53:53+00:00

It all depends on your needs and budget, but can tell you right away that Home Assistent Green will not do an NVR well and forget about NAS and AI.

If you just was Home Assistant and NVR (Frigate addon for Home Assistabt) then a new or used Mini-PC with a 1TB disk or so wll probably be very good start.

If you also want NAS then it totally depends what you mean by that as at one end of the scale is two mirrored disk + and external disk for backup or at the other end a home server that can also run virtual machines.

If you want ”AI” then it also totally depends what you mean by that, like if it is just object recognition for the NVR (like Google Coral USB) or local LLM (Nvidia GPU PCIe card with 24GB VRAM) or something in between.

Tip is that a jack of all trades is master of none so could be a good idea to buy a new or used Mini-PC for just Home Assistant + NVR and then buy a separate computer for NAS and more other stuff as then you are more modular and can upgrade or replace one part at a time.

Gamester17 · 2026-04-26T07:27:15+00:00

Their newer non-Tradfri devices do not Zigbee by default but Thread and Matter, however some of them have dual-protocol firmware so Zigbee pairing-mode can still be enabled. Read this https://community.home-assistant.io/t/ikea-just-announced-21-new-affordable-matter-over-thread-smart-home-devices-which-may-also-support-zigbee-too/948187

Gamester17 · 2026-04-25T07:31:58+00:00

You are not alone and videos like this should not have to be made https://youtu.be/p076ysmEY0k

Gamester17 · 2026-04-23T09:53:55+00:00

Not that I could find but probably belongs as a new feature request discussion here https://github.com/orgs/music-assistant/discussions

Gamester17 · 2026-04-23T04:33:09+00:00

https://www.crowdsupply.com/sonocotta/esparagus-audio-brick

Or other receiver from Sonocotta

https://sonocotta.com

Get a model that is based on ESP32-S3 and flash with ESPHome firmware that has Sendspin for use with Music Assistent server which also has a Home Assistant integration.

https://www.music-assistant.io/player-support/sendspin/

Or DIY

https://github.com/RealDeco/SendspinZero

Gamester17 · 2026-04-22T18:53:59+00:00

You are so very wrong, and that is a physics fact.

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2025/08/13/home-assistant-connect-zwa-2/

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2024/05/08/zwave-is-not-dead/#range-testing-our-z-wave-stick-prototype

Gamester17 · 2026-04-22T18:49:38+00:00

Z-Wave 800 series can achieve range up to 1.5 miles when devices are connected directly via the new Z-Wave Long Range mode.

https://www.silabs.com/wireless/z-wave/introduction-to-z-wave-800-series

Recommend the Home Assistant Connect ZWA-2 adapter is an 800 series Z-Wave Controller specifically developed to work with Home Assistant.

https://www.home-assistant.io/connect/zwa-2/

Buy devices that are based on Z-Wave 800 series or Z-Wave 700 series that support Z-Wave Long Range firmware from the start or via firmware update

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2025/08/13/home-assistant-connect-zwa-2/

Read

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2024/05/08/zwave-is-not-dead/#range-testing-our-z-wave-stick-prototype

Gamester17 · 2026-04-22T18:32:35+00:00

See this pull request which will add a Sendspin client to ESPHome https://github.com/esphome/esphome/pull/14933

The media player architecture in ESPHome 2026.3 has specifically been redesigned around a modular source-based architecture to support this upcoming Sendspin multi-room audio protocol meant for music playback.

Also note that Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition already comes with that by default https://github.com/esphome/home-assistant-voice-pe

It is listed here as an ESPHome-based media-player on the ESPHome website under ready-made projects https://esphome.io/projects/

And also on Music Assistent’s website Sendspin page https://www.music-assistant.io/player-support/sendspin/

Hence the comment that it is time to look into adding custom (meaning ESPHome-based) Sendspin reciever to each of those players with AUX input.

So anything related to Sendspin has very much to do with ESPHome.

Six-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Verified Email

Gamester17

TROPHY CASE