#New HA Voice PE - 4 solid red lights and it never recognizes the wake word

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

random bane
#

After adding the required add-ons (Whisper and Piper) to get the voice assistant going, I click on the "Set up voice assistant".. it checks for updates then switches to "Hello!" and the HA VPE makes a swooshing type sound with some bells at the end. All good, except it never recognizes the wake word 😢 I've tried switch to different wake words and nothing seems to work.

The device displays 4 red lights and it's definitely not in mute mode. I can switch it to mute mode and I can see the page display with the image in the screenshot. Note that changing it to mute doesn't change the lights. Any debug steps on where I can take it from here?

CleanShot_2025-07-12_at_16.47.53.png CleanShot_2025-07-12_at_16.48.20.png
#

[17:01:27][D][api:133]: Accepted 192.168.2.190
[17:01:27][W][component:203]: Component api cleared Warning flag
[17:01:27][D][api.connection:1570]: Home Assistant 2025.7.1 (192.168.2.190) connected
[17:01:27][D][light:036]: 'voice_assistant_leds' Setting:
[17:01:27][D][light:051]: Brightness: 40%
[17:01:27][D][light:058]: Red: 100%, Green: 100%, Blue: 100%
[17:01:29][D][micro_wake_word:360]: Starting wake word detection
[17:01:29][D][light:036]: 'voice_assistant_leds' Setting:
[17:01:29][D][light:051]: Brightness: 40%
[17:01:29][D][light:058]: Red: 100%, Green: 100%, Blue: 100%
[17:01:29][D][micro_wake_word:378]: State changed from STOPPED to STARTING
[17:01:29][D][ring_buffer:034][mww]: Created ring buffer with size 3840
[17:01:29][D][micro_wake_word:261]: Inference task has started, attempting to allocate memory for buffers
[17:01:29][D][micro_wake_word:266]: Inference task is running
[17:01:29][D][micro_wake_word:378]: State changed from STARTING to DETECTING_WAKE_WORD
[17:01:29][W][i2s_audio.microphone:419][mic_task]: Read error: ESP_ERR_TIMEOUT
[17:01:29][W][component:188][mic_task]: Component i2s_audio.microphone set Warning flag: unspecified
[17:01:57][I][safe_mode:042]: Boot seems successful; resetting boot loop counter
[17:01:57][D][esp32.preferences:142]: Writing 5 items: 4 cached, 1 written, 0 failed

#

I wonder if [17:01:29][W][i2s_audio.microphone:419][mic_task]: Read error: ESP_ERR_TIMEOUT is the problem?

random bane
#

Tried doing a hard reset (22 second holding button thing), but I can still see the errors in the log. Tried downgrading firmware to 25.5.2 from 25.6, that seemed to work better as I was able to start configuring it again but it auto updated as soon as I added the device in Home Assistant and the 4 red lights are back.

lone verge
#

I haven't ever seen it but in the firmware:

  # Script executed if voice_kit startup failed
  # Static red "X"
  - id: control_leds_voice_kit_startup_failed
    then:
      - light.turn_on:
          brightness: 40%
          red: 0%
          green: 0%
          blue: 0%
          id: voice_assistant_leds
          effect: "Voice kit startup failed"

it could be a hardware failure of the xmos chip perhaps

random bane
#

I'm seeing things like this in the log 17:49:38][E][component:088]: Component voice_kit is marked FAILED: and [17:49:28][E][voice_kit:026]: Communication with Voice Kit failed [17:49:28][E][component:138]: Component voice_kit was marked as failed. [17:49:28][E][component:195]: Component voice_kit set Error flag: unspecified

lone verge
#

yeah, it looks like a xmos chip failure

#

sorry to say it but you might have a bad unit 😦

random bane
lone verge
#

yup, its a pain but this stuff does happen sometimes

random bane
#

Thanks for the input! It's my first time with this device and was hoping I was reading the logs wrong...