Author: Andriy
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Preview: Esparagus Solo C1, a drop-in Home Assistant board for the IKEA KALLSUP
I’ve been working on something a bit different for the Esparagus Echo line: Solo C1, a replacement PCB for the small IKEA KALLSUP Bluetooth speaker. You open the speaker, swap the original board for this one, and it becomes a Home Assistant voice assistant and multi-room speaker that still looks like the same little cube.…
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Amped-ESP32-Plus: muffled sound on boards shipped 15 Oct – 1 Nov 2026
A batch of Amped-ESP32-Plus boards was assembled with the wrong DAC output filter capacitors, making the sound muffled and quiet. Here is how to check your board, what I will do about it, and how to fix it yourself.
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Color display-enabled configs for Esparagus boards
The latest update to the esparagus firmware installer brings a nice change for the TFT-equipped boards: a new “now playing” screen and no dependency on the weather configuration in Home Assistant. New “now playing” screen activates whenever the player is part of the active speaker group that is playing audio at the moment, and apart…
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Ethernet-enabled Sendspin configs on the web installer
Both esp32-audio-dock firmware web installer and esparagus boards web installer got a slightly controversial update today: Ethernet-enabled configs. Let’s start from the basics. The factory image right now is three images for almost every board: (1) default image that relies on WiFi, (2) same but with OLED screen enabled, and (3) Ethernet-enabled image that has…
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Louder-ESP32-Pro is now available at Elecrow
The Louder-ESP32-Pro is now available for purchase at Elecrow, my production and distribution partner. It comes only in an ESP32-S3-based variant. Optional power adapters and TFT screens are coming soon as well. On this occasion, factory production for Amped-ESP32-Plus boards was completed as well, so all four variants are available for purchase. EU stock is…
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Screen-enabled Sendspin factory images
Until recently, all Sendspin factory images available at the web installer for Esparagus boards and ESP32 development boards had a single Sendspin image with both Ethernet and OLED/TFT screen disabled by default, since most of the customers don’t have those options installed, and configuring them in that case would create pointless overhead of trying to…
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Audio Brick sales are open
As all Crowd Supply orders have been shipped to backers now, Esparagus Audio Brick sales are finally open in both EU stores (Tindie, Lectronz) and Elecrow (ships globally) The DUAL DAC version is limited to a few units only, but fear not; a new batch is already being produced and will soon be available at all…
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Stock update: Louder-ESP32-Mini and HiFi-Esaparagus
Hey folks, I just received a large box from my Chinese Santa. Louder-ESP32-Minis are in stock now in the EU store (Tindie, Lectronz). Also, both variants of HiFi Esapragus are refilled (Tindie, Lectronz).
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New onboarding experience for ESP32 audio boards
Following last week’s update, ESP32-based audio development boards receive a new firmware web installer It works in a very similar way; you get Sendspin firmware as a default recommended choice, but both 16-bit and 32-bit squeezelite-esp32 variants are available as well. Speaking of Sendspin, once you have firmware installed, you’ll onboard wifi using the same…
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Retro Pi Handheld Guide
As a side miniproject, I just finished making a small (tiny, actually) handheld game console, based on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W and a Waveshare GamePi13 HAT This small build doesn’t use any of the Soncotta parts, and I do it solely for research purposes. It takes some effort to make the TFT, buttons, and sound…