Wyoming OVOS Wake Word Bridge

Expose OpenVoiceOS wake word (hotword) plugins as a Wyoming protocol wake service for use with Home Assistant, Rhasspy, and other Wyoming-compatible voice pipelines.

                         ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
  Wyoming client         │      wyoming-ovos-wakeword            │
  (Home Assistant,       │                                      │
   Rhasspy, etc.)        │  ┌────────────────────────────────┐  │
                         │  │ OVOSWakeWordEventHandler       │  │
  Detect(names) ────────►│  │                                │  │
  AudioStart ───────────►│  │ load_wakewords(names) ─────────►│  OVOSWakeWordFactory
  AudioChunk* ──────────►│  │ HotWordEngine.update(chunk)    │  └──> Hotword plugins
                         │  │ HotWordEngine.found_wake_word()│  │
  Detection ◄────────────│  │                                │  │
  AudioStop ────────────►│  │ (if no detection)              │  │
  NotDetected ◄──────────│  │                                │  │
                         │  └────────────────────────────────┘  │
  Describe ─────────────►│  Info(wake=[WakeProgram(...)])       │
  Info ◄─────────────────│                                      │
                         └──────────────────────────────────────┘

Features

• Multiple simultaneous wake words — Clients select which models to activate via the Detect event
• Lazy model loading — Hotword engines are loaded on demand and cached per connection
• All configured hotwords advertised — Every entry under hotwords in mycroft.conf is exposed in the Wyoming Info response
• Zeroconf / mDNS discovery — Optional service announcement on the local network
• Error reporting — Failures are sent back as Wyoming Error events
• Signal handling — Graceful shutdown on SIGINT/SIGTERM

Installation

From PyPI

pip install wyoming-ovos-wakeword

You also need to install the OVOS wake word engine(s) you intend to use, e.g.:

pip install ovos-ww-plugin-precise-lite
pip install ovos-ww-plugin-vosk

From source

git clone https://github.com/OpenVoiceOS/wyoming-ovos-wakeword.git
cd wyoming-ovos-wakeword
pip install -e .

Configuration

Wake word definitions are read from mycroft.conf under hotwords. The default active wake word (when no Detect event is received) is taken from listener.wake_word.

{
  "listener": {
    "wake_word": "hey_mycroft"
  },
  "hotwords": {
    "hey_mycroft": {
      "module": "ovos-ww-plugin-precise-lite",
      "model": "https://github.com/OpenVoiceOS/precise-lite-models/raw/master/wakewords/en/hey_mycroft.tflite",
      "expected_duration": 3,
      "trigger_level": 3,
      "sensitivity": 0.5,
      "listen": true
    },
    "hey_mycroft_vosk": {
      "module": "ovos-ww-plugin-vosk",
      "samples": ["hey mycroft"],
      "rule": "fuzzy",
      "listen": true
    },
    "wake_up": {
      "module": "ovos-ww-plugin-vosk",
      "rule": "fuzzy",
      "samples": ["wake up"],
      "lang": "en-us",
      "wakeup": true
    }
  }
}

All configured hotwords are advertised via Describe/Info and are selectable by name.

Usage

# Standard TCP server with zeroconf
wyoming-ovos-wakeword --uri tcp://0.0.0.0:7893 --zeroconf

# With custom zeroconf service name
wyoming-ovos-wakeword --uri tcp://0.0.0.0:7893 --zeroconf my-ovos-ww

# Unix socket
wyoming-ovos-wakeword --uri unix:///run/wyoming-ww.sock

# Over stdio
wyoming-ovos-wakeword

CLI Reference

Zeroconf requires a tcp:// URI.

Wyoming Protocol

Wake word detection flow

Client → Describe
Server → Info(wake=[WakeProgram(models=[WakeModel(name="hey_mycroft", ...), ...])])

Client → Detect(names=["hey_mycroft", "wake_up"])
Client → AudioStart(rate=16000, width=2, channels=1)
       → AudioChunk (raw PCM bytes)
       → AudioChunk ...
       → Detection(name="hey_mycroft", timestamp=...)   ← on match
       → AudioChunk ...
       → AudioStop
Server → NotDetected                                  ← if no match

The connection stays open for continuous detection. Multiple detections can occur within a single audio stream. Audio is converted to 16 kHz / 16-bit / mono PCM automatically.

Supported Plugin Types

Any OVOS wake word plugin implementing HotWordEngine from ovos_plugin_manager.templates.hotwords:

• ovos-ww-plugin-precise-lite — Mycroft Precise (TFLite)
• ovos-ww-plugin-precise — Mycroft Precise (full)
• ovos-ww-plugin-vosk — Vosk-based wake word
• ovos-ww-plugin-pocketsphinx — CMU PocketSphinx
• ovos-ww-plugin-snowboy — Snowboy (deprecated)
• ovos-ww-plugin-openspeech — OpenSpeech
• ovos-ww-plugin-porcupine — Porcupine

Zeroconf / mDNS Discovery

When --zeroconf is passed, the bridge announces itself on the local network. Home Assistant and other Wyoming clients can discover the service automatically without manual IP configuration. The service is registered as _wyoming._tcp.local..

Documentation

Detailed docs live in docs/:

• Configuration
• Home Assistant
• Wyoming protocol

Credits

Developed by TigreGótico for OpenVoiceOS.

This project was funded through the NGI0 Commons Fund, a fund established by NLnet with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology under grant agreement No 101135429.