what would be needed to use the mic

[west zenith]

follow up question: is it safe to assume that if we had a microphone integration, we could create generic/template voice assistants using such a microphone and a media_player, optionally just turning on an "I need audio from that microphone to process" momentary switch for PTT?

[royal grove]

You don't need a special integration, just a small app that runs on your computer