hivemind-mic-satellite 0.8.0a3

Remote microphone for HiveMind

HiveMind Microphone Satellite

The thinnest HiveMind satellite — Microphone + VAD only. All speech processing happens on the hive.

Audio is streamed from this device to a HiveMind server running hivemind-audio-binary-protocol. The server handles wakeword detection, STT, intent, and TTS synthesis; the satellite receives the synthesized speech audio and plays it back locally. No local STT or TTS models are needed — ideal for cheap, low-power hardware such as a Raspberry Pi Zero.

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Satellite spectrum — where does processing happen?

Satellite	Mic	VAD	Wakeword	STT	TTS	Best for
HiveMind-cli	—	—	—	—	—	Text-only (keyboard/script)
hivemind-mic-satellite (this repo)	local	local	server	server	server	Cheapest HW / homelab; no local models
HiveMind-voice-relay	local	local	local	server	server	Local wakeword; scales as a service
HiveMind-voice-sat	local	local	local	local	local	Full local stack, sends text

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Server requirements

Important: The default hivemind-core does not include audio processing.
You need hivemind-audio-binary-protocol installed server-side to enable server-side wakeword, STT, and TTS.

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Why mic-satellite — and when not to

mic-satellite exists for one reason: device resources. With only a microphone and VAD on-device, it runs on the cheapest hardware (a Raspberry Pi Zero, a recycled phone) with zero local models. Everything else — wakeword, STT, intent, TTS — is owned by the hive and gated behind the same access-key authentication as the rest of the mesh. The hive operator decides the engines, models, and voice, uniformly; a satellite cannot override them. (Same ownership model as voice-relay — see its docs for the "HiveMind as a service" framing.)

The trade-off, and the limit. Because there is no local wakeword, the satellite streams every detected voice segment upstream (VAD-gated, but not gated by a wakeword). That continuous audio stream is bandwidth-heavy and puts the full STT load on the server for all speech, not just commands. It is the right call for a homelab with a handful of personal devices, where on-device resources are the binding constraint. It does not scale for HiveMind-as-a-service across many tenants — streaming raw audio per client is too costly. For a scalable, service-style deployment, prefer voice-relay: local wakeword means audio only leaves the device after activation.

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Install

pip install hivemind-mic-satellite

Requires Python ≥ 3.10.

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60-second quickstart

1. On the hive (server) — create an access key for this device:

hivemind-core add-client --name my-mic-sat
# note the access_key and password printed

2. On the satellite device — set the identity:

hivemind-client set-identity \
  --key <access_key> \
  --password <password> \
  --host <hive-host-or-ip>

3. Run:

hivemind-mic-sat

Or pass credentials directly without storing them:

hivemind-mic-sat --key <key> --password <password> --host <host> --port 5678

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Minimal configuration

The satellite shares the standard OpenVoiceOS config file ~/.config/mycroft/mycroft.conf.
At minimum you need a microphone plugin and a VAD plugin:

{
  "microphone": {
    "module": "ovos-microphone-plugin-alsa"
  },
  "VAD": {
    "module": "ovos-vad-plugin-silero"
  }
}

See docs/configuration.md for all options, plugin selection, and audio device tuning.

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Supported plugins

Plugin type	Required	Purpose
Microphone	Yes	Captures audio from hardware
VAD	Yes	Voice activity detection (when to stream)
PHAL	No	Platform/hardware abstraction (e.g. LEDs, buttons)
TTS Transformers	No	Mutate TTS audio before playback
G2P	No	Visemes / mouth movement (e.g. Mycroft Mk1)
Media Playback	No	"Play Metallica"-style media commands
OCP Plugins	No	URL playback (YouTube, etc.)

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Features not present (handled server-side)

• STT (speech-to-text) — runs on server
• TTS (text-to-speech) synthesis — runs on server
• Wakeword detection — runs on server
• Continuous listening / hybrid listening / sleep mode / recording mode
• Multiple wakewords
• Audio / dialog transformer plugins

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Documentation

Full zero-to-hero documentation is in docs/:

• Overview & satellite spectrum
• Getting started
• Configuration reference
• Architecture (advanced)
• Deployment (systemd, Raspberry Pi)
• Troubleshooting

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Related

Project	Role
HiveMind-core	The hive — manages connected satellites
hivemind-audio-binary-protocol	Server-side audio processing (required)
HiveMind-voice-relay	Satellite with local wakeword
HiveMind-voice-sat	Full local stack satellite
HiveMind-cli	Text-only satellite
ovos-plugin-manager	Plugin framework (mic, VAD, PHAL, …)

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License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE.