Are we in a position yet to replace Echo devices?

[solemn shell]

So, I bought a M5Stack Official ATOM Echo Smart Speaker thing and have got it all set up and running with wyoming /openwakeword etc and connected to my locally installed llama LLM (and google gemini too) and it seems to be great.

my issues are

1. the device is tiny and , frankly useless for anything more than testing. It is obviously has a speaker far too small to be useful and its hardly a 360degree microphone. are we in any position to be doing this on better hardware/hacking actual smart speakers or integrating them in such a way that it uses HA for its voice responses etc?
   I'd love to have an actual useful "alexa" which answers questions with AI, but I refuse to give Amazon extra money when they bring out their own AI powered alexa.

2. is there any way of playing the likes of spotify through HA via the voice assistant so that it plays out of whatever smart speaker you are using it from?

[cobalt mirage]

If you did a search, you'd find a lot of things beyond M5Stack. 🙂

1. There's S3 Box device, ready to roll. Microphones are pretty good, but speaker is crap.
2. There are plenty of self-made assistants built on INMP mics and MAX98357 DACs. Suitable for quiet rooms, but not for living room for sure.
3. There's Onju Voice project, that has guts replaced for Google Home Mini. Worth mentioning, but there's also not so much microphone-wise.
4. There's couple projects in active development, including NabuCasa Voice Kit (aka PE), promised in the end of year, and FutureProofHomes satellite (no news on it for couple months, but the team there is great).
5. I personally work on integrating Seeed Respeaker Lite Voice Kit to HA using same code Nabu guys are writing for PE. It already works good, check https://community.home-assistant.io/t/respeaker-lite-new-seeed-studio-voice-assistant-development-kit-hardware-combine-esp32-with-xmos-xu316-dsp-chip-for-advanced-audio-processing-as-a-esphome-based-home-assistant-assist-satellite-voice-devkit/756944