Voice PE sometimes requires multiple wake word activations before actually listening

[grand crown]

If I haven't spoken to my voice assistant in a while (a few minutes or so), there's about a 50% chance that, when I say the wake word, the Voice PE actually listens. The rest of the time, it flashes a red circle or doesn't change the LED state at all. When it does this, I have to activate it three or more times (up to seven!) before it will actually accept voice commands.

It's recognizing the wake word because I hear the wake word sound effect each time I say it. It's almost like it's having trouble connecting to the server or something, but my Wi-Fi coverage is good and it never actually reports as offline.

I'm not very experienced with ESPHome devices, but I'm happy to provide logs if someone can direct me to where/how to retrieve them.

I can't seem to find others who have this problem, so I'm baffled by what could be going wrong. This is a huge annoyance to the smooth operation of my device, by far my #1 issue.

[turbid crane]

Do you have more than one HA voice assistant?

[grand crown]

If you mean assistants defined in the Assist page of Home Assistant, yes: one is kept disabled, however, because I was playing with LLMs on my much more powerful desktop, which isn't always on

If you mean hardware boxes to respond to my voice, then no: I only own the single Voice PE and no other voice-enabled assist boxes

The desktop one has many of its components disabled, but the Voice PE is set to use the NUC one

[turbid crane]

Ok. If you have multiple devices, sometimes more than one hear the wakeword and only one proceeds to listening

[naive plank]

This sounds very simular to the issue I am having described under the micro wake word detected, but does not process voice commands which I am not having any luck debugging so far.

[grand crown]

Interesting - when I tried it today, I have Home Assistant pulled up and noticed that the status of the satellite changed to listening for a brief moment before going straight back to idle. I wonder if that's related?

[jovial carbon]

How is your wifi signal? Mine had similar issues when low wifi strength

[grand crown]

I think it's fine? I'm in an apartment (so a small space but lots of potential interference). I have the router in a closet on one side, and I set up a second access point on the other side, and the Voice PE is in the middle

I suppose it could be trying to swap between the two points frequently? I'm unsure how to check if that's occurring or if it's the problem. But I also remember this being an issue before setting up the access point, which I thought would ease the issue but doesn't seem to have helped

But also: if poor WiFi or frequent switching were the problem, wouldn't the Voice PE show in HA as Unavailable during those periods? As far as I'm aware, it always says it's online

[grand crown]

I tried it while watching the logbook, and it happened just now, where I had to say the wake word twice before it would actually listen (marked with an arrow). Whatever is triggering it back to idle after starting to listen seems at least partly responsible

[void bridge]

I have this exact same issue with the VPE I have in my kitchen, whereas VPEs in other rooms are fine. I presume it's to do with extra reverb in the room.

I've tried recompiling with the noise suppression and autogain settings, and even creating a new microwakeword recorded in the exact space. But nothing works, and it always only triggers on second attempts.

[grand crown]

To be clear, is your problem also that it hears the wake word and plays the sound effect but doesn't listen? Or is it that it doesn't hear the wake word the first time at all?

[void bridge]

As would be typical - I just went and tested it, to share the logbook events, and it worked perfectly for each wakeword 🤦‍♂️ 🤷‍♂️

[jovial carbon]

switching between AP's does not sound optimal. Background noise will be the other issue.

also try to set router to 2.4ghz only.