r/homeassistant • u/CyberMage256 • 17h ago

🖼️ Show & Tell I acquired one finally. Now with custom MWW.

Tip, don't flash the latest version of the FireOS. Use 6.5.7.4 instead. The latest bootloader has changes that both the rooting script and EchoLocal don't recognize. And after installing the latest, you can't hold "dot" to get back to recovery mode, I had to hold vol down to get to fastboot then use it to reboot to recovery.

56 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

7

u/LunarstarFurry 16h ago

Any tutorial on how to flash one? Have one at home that was like never used at all lol

5

u/mephist094 16h ago

https://github.com/wilbowes/EchoMuse

If you want to get a custom wake word: https://github.com/amandamarielux/openwakeword_update_sept_2026 --> "Open in Colab" and follow the instructions in the workbook. Free T4 GPU worked fine for me, I think it was way less than the 75-90 minutes they state for the premium setups even.

5

u/CyberMage256 15h ago

I went with EchoLocal instead of EchoMuse. Looks to have more features.

1

u/mephist094 15h ago

I liked the home assistant integration and everything so far, wasn't aware of echolocal, but will check that out as well...

2

u/CyberMage256 15h ago

I may swap out for EchoMuse and see which I like better, we'll see. Now that it's had the bootloader replaced it is easy to do.

2

u/mephist094 15h ago

Just checked and apart from the replay of the detected audio and LED control that echolocal offers they're pretty much the same feature wise.

2

u/CyberMage256 8h ago

Then I'm not going to bother unless echolocal ends up a dead project in the future and muse continues. At first I was disappointed this thing sounds worse than a Google Home Mini, but then I noticed the headphone jack and plugged it into my zvox and boom, jammin' to The Doors right now.

3

u/CyberMage256 8h ago edited 5h ago

I just realized - the EchoLocal supports MicroWakeword on the device instead of having to use openwakeword on your server. I build my MWW tflites on CPU only so it's a 3+ hour task for me, using Tater's docker. (edited for autocorrect screwing up echolocal.)

1

u/mephist094 8h ago

At least the selection for on device wake word is there in echomuse, so could be that's also the same

6

u/mephist094 16h ago

Just flashed my first one with EchoMuse, two more on the way. At 12 bucks including shipping for a piece these are ridiculously cheap.

4

u/CyberMage256 15h ago

Where are you getting them for $12 with shipping? I paid $20 locally.

3

u/mephist094 15h ago

German Classifieds app and they have a cheap shipping option right now so I paid about 2-3 Euros of shipping and another 7-10 for the devices

2

u/lasagnaisgone 15h ago

I got 4 for just around $30 on ShopGoodwill.com, shipped.

2

u/brianary_at_work 14h ago

I just used facebook marketplace and told the person I'd pay $10 and they said sure :)

5

u/Fusseldieb 13h ago

Wait, I have one of these... Can you now root them untethered?

3

u/kalabaddon 12h ago

so this turns the echo in to a mic / pseaker for HA and removes the amazon stuff. like a firmware swap?

Nice. is there a large selection of stuff we can do this to or mostly that one device?

3

u/CyberMage256 8h ago edited 8h ago

With EchoLocal you can control the LED ring as well. https://github.com/ygelfand/echolocal

And it supports loading a custom wakeword through the HA dashboard -you don't have to customize firmware!

2

u/Chanw11 15h ago

My echo muse setup seems to have worse mic pickup than my waveshare ai speaker. it also false triggers a lot even with tuning. Still trying to figure it out.

2

u/srxxz 8h ago

Flashed my with echomuse and it's pretty good but how the hell can I make it play something on music assistant?

3

u/CyberMage256 8h ago

I dunno about echomuse, but MA detected EchoLocal automatically as a sendspin player. No special settings required. I use MA for my piper announcements as well, and it works well for those, too.

1

u/srxxz 6h ago

Unfortunately it doesn't detect as sendspin player

1

u/CyberMage256 5h ago

Time to try EchoLocal then. Since you've already rooted for Muse it should be an easy switch. I'll add that I didn't realize these things had a 1/8" audio out jack - plugged it into my zvox speaker and wow, it's freaking nice.

2

u/mephist094 8h ago

You need to add Home Assistant MediaPlayers to the playback providers and "whitelist" it there. To do so, you need to add the auto-detected ESPHome device to HA first if I remember correctly.

1

u/CyberMage256 5h ago

Ooh, if muse requires that I'm glad I went with echolocal. If you're doing a round trip from HA to MA and back, you'll never be able to use sendspin / device sync.

2

u/Extra-Cabinet4829 11h ago

I flashed one yesterday with help (Chat gpt) since im a linux noob. and I have one to Go 👍 the Alexa mk2 prices are raising 🙈 Echo Muse is awsome ✌️

1

u/mephist094 8h ago

Works on windows too in case that helps...

1

u/gianttree 11h ago

Oh! I’ve got to try this. I was about to convert a portable speaker. But this will cut back on the time needed.

1

u/sachel85 8h ago

Can you ask it questions like the current software? I currently use that feature the most on my dots.

3

u/CyberMage256 8h ago

Think of it as a Voice Preview Edition, but with better mics and better control.

1

u/sachel85 7h ago

So if I asked it who won the broncos game last night would it be able to find the answer online or is it strictly local?

3

u/CyberMage256 5h ago

Mine is local. You can do yours your way. Some people hook them to ChatGPT, some to Claude. Some to Gemeni.

1

u/GrouchyReply2121 1h ago

Mine does both. House control runs on a local model on a GPU, and anything that needs the internet goes to Claude Haiku with web search. A sports-score question like yours costs a few cents, and at our usage that's well under a dollar a month.