PINE64 Pencils PineVox Manufacturing in for February, as Firmware Development Continues
The privacy-focused smart speaker, designed for use with Home Assistant, has enjoyed "significant progress" in the last few months.
PINE64 has offered an update on the PineVox project, an effort to build an open and privacy-friendly smart speaker system for voice control of Home Assistant home automation setups β with work in progress for Wi-Fi connectivity to compatible devices, as well as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE).
"Gamiee has been working on the firmware for the PineVox recently, [and] he has made some significant progress on the usability of the device," PINE64's "Caffeine" explains in the company's latest community update post. "Right now, the device can connect to home assistant, detect wake-up, and process commands. Wake-up detection is currently done on the Home Assistant side, streaming audio data through Home Assistant. This will change as work is done to get wake-up detection working locally on the PineVox."
The PineVox was unveiled back in March last year as a smart speaker built around the Bouffalo LAb BL606P system-on-chip. Rather than music streaming, though, the gadget was positioned firmly as a voice assistant for home automation tasks β and with privacy features including a microphone mute function that can only be disabled by physically pushing a button on the top of the device.
As is common for the company, though, the PineVox's hardware was completed long before its software. Nearly a year on, PINE64 is still working on the gadget's firmware to deliver on its promise β and there's still no launch date in sight, though volume manufacturing is scheduled for next month if development continues on-track. "Regarding the release of PineVox," Caffeine notes, "it depends. Currently this will depend on when Gamiee considers the firmware for the device to be usable. Only then will manufacturing for the device begin, which is loosely aimed at the end of February."
"As for whatβs next," Caffeine continues, "Gamiee wants to implement a protocol for connection via Wi-Fi. This is much better for devices like smartphones, which in an ideal situation will provide coverage all throughout the home, rather than the small area that Bluetooth LE covers."
The company's latest update also includes a warning for those who have picked up a PineNote ePaper tablet, regarding a bug that can prevent the installation of updates released since early December last year. "Users running the factory firmware on their PineNote Community Edition will encounter an issue updating their system," Caffeine writes.
"This happens because Debian has moved /lib
, /lib64
, etc. to /usr
and because the system still includes a /lib64
symlink, attempting to update the system results in the base-files package failing to install. You can fix this by removing the symlink by running sudo rm /lib64
in your terminal (via SSH, UART, etc.)"
The full community update is available on the PINE64 website.