OpenWakeWord & custom wake word | Home Assistant | Page 1

raven rock Jan 15, 2026, 10:45 PM

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Thanks for your help with this.

I created a custom wake word using OWW's own documented methods for this, but cannot for the life of me get my voice assistant to respond to that word. If I use any of the built-ins, it's fine. I don't see anything in the logs that would point me to an answer, so... how do I begin to debug this, please?

(To be explicit, I've got a .tflite file in the SMB share/openwakeword folder, a corresponding entry in the dropdown that reflects the name of that file, etc. I just can't get the assistant to respond to it. I've tried some other wake word tflite files I've found, but they are hit or miss at best.)

stable zinc Jan 21, 2026, 11:00 AM

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I seem to have similar problem, i narrowed it down to ESP speaker. So i have my own wake word as you do in share folder, and its being recognized by HA i I can choos it in VA configuration, but i can't chose it in m5stack-atom - it's missing there

fervent pagoda Jan 21, 2026, 1:46 PM

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You're confusing Openwakeword with Microwakeword.
OWW is streaming wake word, and it works co.pletely on server. Nothing to do with settings on device. You set it in the pipeline.
Your Atom has MWW - it's on-device wake word. That drop-down on second screenshot shows baked in wake words on device, MWW.
Models for OWW and MWW are not intercha, although have same extension ".tflite* - so if you have OWW model - it's only used with streaming wake word.

Using OWW requires different config on ESPHome satellite, that will send audio to the server continuously (use_wakeword: true in voice_assistant config).

stable zinc Jan 21, 2026, 7:26 PM

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Thank you, now it works like a charm.

stable zinc Jan 21, 2026, 8:18 PM

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@raven rock check this setting - it should point to in Home Assistant - the setting is separate for each echo speaker

woven orchid Jan 21, 2026, 9:59 PM

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To add to this, you can train your MWW with github.com/TaterTotterson/microWakeWord-Trainer-Nvidia-Docker/

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I personally trained 'Zylox'

raven rock Jan 23, 2026, 12:55 PM

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stable zinc <@1271869756361936920> check this setting - it should point to in Home Assistant...

Thanks - where is that setting, please?

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Oh, wait, I see. I'm not using any Echo speakers, though.

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I have a minimal HA setup, with a physical USB "speakerphone" mic/speaker box directly connected to the raspberry pi running HAOS, exposed to the rest of HA via the Assist Microphone add-on.

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Since posting this original thread, I've had imperfect success with another third-party provided custom wake word, but still not my own. I'm leaning towards re-training a custom wake word or somehow re-engineering that process so that it produces, you know, results. 😉

#OpenWakeWord & custom wake word