3 ms·

How about a button? I'd prefer to physically press a button on an intercom box than having something churning away constantly processing sound.

kortilla 7mo ago
Rules out a bunch of cases where your hands are busy handling ingredients in the kitchen, etc
- magarnicle 7mo ago
  Put it at foot level and kick it.
pwillia7 7mo ago
I'm in if I can embed it into my forearm
- hamdingers 7mo ago
  In the mid 2000s I had a setup where some children's walkie talkie "spy watches" could be used to issue commands to a completely DIY, relay based smart home system. I'm looking forward to whenever my Pebble ships so I can recreate that experience with this: https://github.com/skylord123/pebble-home-assistant-ws https://github.com/skylord123/pebble-home-assistant-ws
- nickthegreek 7mo ago
  apple watch gets you close.
hamdingers 7mo ago
If I have to go to a thing and push a button, I'd rather the button do the thing I wanted in the first place. Voice assistants are for when my hands are full or I don't want to get up. (I wrote more about my home automation philosophy in another comment[1]). Also I have all my voice assistant devices mounted to the ceiling 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47399909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47399909
- huhtenberg 7mo ago
  What if you have two things? You'd then need two buttons. The push button is a perfectly viable option, it just needs to be in a form factor that's works. Could be as simple as a tiny low-energy Bluetooth board with a coin battery that will last several months.
  - ash_091 7mo ago
    Luckily I carry around a device with infinite reconfigurable buttons!
  - kbelder 7mo ago
    Yeah, a touch-sensitive com-badge mounted on your chest would work. Actually, I would think a small coin-sized button & transmitter that did nothing but emit a signal that your assistant (or phone) interprets as 'start listening' would be pretty useful. In your pocket, on a watch band, etc.
tomComb 7mo ago
The pebble index seems like the optimal form for this. https://repebble.com/index https://repebble.com/index Could be pressed even if your hands were busy.
- stavros 7mo ago
  If you want to relax some constraints, I made something similar for $10: https://www.stavros.io/posts/i-made-a-voice-note-taker/ https://www.stavros.io/posts/i-made-a-voice-note-taker/
  - CurleighBraces 7mo ago
    Did you have any luck with the power issues on the new board?
    - stavros 7mo ago
      The new board hasn't come yet, but a friend gave me a great idea, to power the mic from a GPIO, which powers it off completely when the ESP is off. Hopefully the new boards will be here soon, but another issue is that I don't really have anything that can measure microamp consumption, so any testing takes days of waiting for the battery to run down :( I do think these clones are the issue, though. They had a LED I couldn't turn off, so they'd literally shine forever. They don't seem engineered for low quiescent current, so fingers crossed with the new ones.
      - CurleighBraces 7mo ago
        Makes a lot of sense :) thanks for the update. I'll try to remember to creepy stalk you for updates as the device sounds great!
        stavros 7mo ago
        You can sign up to my mailing list to get emails if you want! It's at the end of each post.
croes 7mo ago
Time for a real life Star Trek comm badge
- spacecrafter3d 7mo ago
  We thought so too ;) https://www.linkedin.com/posts/y-combinator_button-computer-yc-w26-is-the-wearable-activity-7434658923824984064-ZDjV https://www.linkedin.com/posts/y-combinator_button-computer-...
- freedomben 7mo ago
  For real, if I had a fully self-hosted and private system, I'd love a real life Star Trek comm badge. Being able to say, "where is Jeff?" and have it tell me alone would be quite an awesome feature
_kb 7mo ago
Like a light switch? Or do you mean a button that activates chunked recording, passes it to a speech-to-text model, forwards to an LLM to infer intent, which triggers HA to issue a command, over a wireless network, to the computer with the light attached, to tell the light to turn on.

kortilla 7mo ago

Rules out a bunch of cases where your hands are busy handling ingredients in the kitchen, etc

magarnicle 7mo ago
Put it at foot level and kick it.

pwillia7 7mo ago

I'm in if I can embed it into my forearm

hamdingers 7mo ago
In the mid 2000s I had a setup where some children's walkie talkie "spy watches" could be used to issue commands to a completely DIY, relay based smart home system. I'm looking forward to whenever my Pebble ships so I can recreate that experience with this: https://github.com/skylord123/pebble-home-assistant-ws https://github.com/skylord123/pebble-home-assistant-ws
nickthegreek 7mo ago
apple watch gets you close.

hamdingers 7mo ago

If I have to go to a thing and push a button, I'd rather the button do the thing I wanted in the first place. Voice assistants are for when my hands are full or I don't want to get up. (I wrote more about my home automation philosophy in another comment[1]). Also I have all my voice assistant devices mounted to the ceiling 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47399909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47399909

huhtenberg 7mo ago
What if you have two things? You'd then need two buttons. The push button is a perfectly viable option, it just needs to be in a form factor that's works. Could be as simple as a tiny low-energy Bluetooth board with a coin battery that will last several months.
- ash_091 7mo ago
  Luckily I carry around a device with infinite reconfigurable buttons!
- kbelder 7mo ago
  Yeah, a touch-sensitive com-badge mounted on your chest would work. Actually, I would think a small coin-sized button & transmitter that did nothing but emit a signal that your assistant (or phone) interprets as 'start listening' would be pretty useful. In your pocket, on a watch band, etc.

tomComb 7mo ago

The pebble index seems like the optimal form for this. https://repebble.com/index https://repebble.com/index Could be pressed even if your hands were busy.

stavros 7mo ago
If you want to relax some constraints, I made something similar for $10: https://www.stavros.io/posts/i-made-a-voice-note-taker/ https://www.stavros.io/posts/i-made-a-voice-note-taker/
- CurleighBraces 7mo ago
  Did you have any luck with the power issues on the new board?
  - stavros 7mo ago
    The new board hasn't come yet, but a friend gave me a great idea, to power the mic from a GPIO, which powers it off completely when the ESP is off. Hopefully the new boards will be here soon, but another issue is that I don't really have anything that can measure microamp consumption, so any testing takes days of waiting for the battery to run down :( I do think these clones are the issue, though. They had a LED I couldn't turn off, so they'd literally shine forever. They don't seem engineered for low quiescent current, so fingers crossed with the new ones.
    - CurleighBraces 7mo ago
      Makes a lot of sense :) thanks for the update. I'll try to remember to creepy stalk you for updates as the device sounds great!
      - stavros 7mo ago
        You can sign up to my mailing list to get emails if you want! It's at the end of each post.

croes 7mo ago

Time for a real life Star Trek comm badge

spacecrafter3d 7mo ago
We thought so too ;) https://www.linkedin.com/posts/y-combinator_button-computer-yc-w26-is-the-wearable-activity-7434658923824984064-ZDjV https://www.linkedin.com/posts/y-combinator_button-computer-...
freedomben 7mo ago
For real, if I had a fully self-hosted and private system, I'd love a real life Star Trek comm badge. Being able to say, "where is Jeff?" and have it tell me alone would be quite an awesome feature

_kb 7mo ago

Like a light switch? Or do you mean a button that activates chunked recording, passes it to a speech-to-text model, forwards to an LLM to infer intent, which triggers HA to issue a command, over a wireless network, to the computer with the light attached, to tell the light to turn on.