EchoLocal
Upgrade your 2nd-generation Amazon Echo Dot (biscuit, RS03QR) into a local Home Assistant voice satellite (and more).
A pure-Go replacement for Amazon's services that speaks the ESPHome native API, so Home Assistant discovers it the way it discovers any ESPHome device.
Requires a device unlocked with TWRP or similar — see xdaforums for details.
Includes:
100% on-device local wake words. Supports openWakeWord and microWakeWord models, including "stop" detection.
LED ring. Twelve individually addressable segments, multiple animation effects across ambient, motion, alert and room-reactive behavior, and a color picker per segment. The ring can follow the room's volume.
Speaker. A native Home Assistant media_player — play any media Home Assistant can hand it.
Music can duck under a wake word, and resumes. Also supports white-noise generation.
Bluetooth proxy. BLE advertisements forwarded to Home Assistant, so the Dot extends your
Bluetooth and can be used in integrations like bermuda.
While the proxy is enabled, the Dot also advertises as an iBeacon with UUID
9c5fa6f1-91c4-4f56-bb9f-d92acfd9d40b, major 1, and a minor derived from the final two bytes of
its factory MAC address. The beacon stops when the proxy is disabled. This supports tools such as
BLE Positioning System, which use the physical positions of BLE
receivers to locate tracked devices.
Lux sensor. The board carries an ambient light sensor that Amazon appears to have left unused.
The optional integration
Everything above works with stock Home Assistant. The EchoLocal integration (HACS) adds optional functionality:
- a dashboard and cards built for these devices
- per-turn history
- play back of what the microphones heard
- a wake word library manager
Installing
You need a 2nd-generation Echo Dot, connected via a USB cable, and a device that has been unlocked with TWRP as its
recovery partition. echolocal does the rest. It'll prompt for wifi configuration if it hasn't been setup and provide espHome encryption key
Download echolocal for your computer from the latest release:
| Computer | File |
|---|---|
| Mac (Apple silicon) | echolocal_darwin_arm64 |
| Mac (Intel) | echolocal_darwin_x86_64 |
| Linux (x86-64) | echolocal_linux_x86_64 |
| Linux (ARM64) | echolocal_linux_arm64 |
| Windows (x86-64) | echolocal_windows_x86_64.exe |
| Windows (ARM64) | echolocal_windows_arm64.exe |
On macOS and Linux, rename it and make it executable:
mv echolocal_darwin_arm64 echolocal chmod +x echolocal
On macOS, if Gatekeeper blocks it, clear the quarantine flag:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine echolocal
Then run the installer with the Dot plugged in:
./echolocal install --name living-room
On Windows, run the downloaded file directly:
.\echolocal_windows_x86_64.exe install --name living-room
It then turns up in Home Assistant on its own, and the key echolocal printed is what pairs it:
Building it yourself
make build-echod # cross-compile the daemon for the Dot make install-echod # build, install, and restart it on a connected device
How it fits together
- echod runs on the Dot: the hardware, the wake word engines, the conversation, and an ESPHome native API server.
- echolocal is the host CLI: installing, re-installing, provisioning, and offline tools for debugging the device.
- go-esphome-device implements the device half of the ESPHome protocol, including the voice satellite and Bluetooth proxy.