Your Google Home Mini, Rebuilt for Privacy

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Your Google Home Mini, Rebuilt for Privacy

Every time you ask your Google Home Mini to turn off the lights, that audio makes a round trip to Google's servers — through infrastructure you don't control — before anything actually happens in your home.

A new open hardware project called MiciMike is here to cut that wire entirely.

The Short Version

MiciMike is a drop-in replacement PCB for the first-gen Google Home Mini. Swap out the original mainboard, slot in MiciMike — same enclosure, same speaker, same touch sensors. You're only replacing the brain.

The new brain runs on an ESP32-S3 and an XMOS XU316 voice processor, paired with Home Assistant over your local network. Here's what that means in practice:

  • Wake-word detection and audio preprocessing: 100% on-device
  • Speech recognition and TTS: handled locally by Home Assistant
  • Audio never leaves your home. At any step.
  • Works indefinitely — no Google account, no cloud dependency, no plug-pull risk

And it still looks like a consumer product on your shelf. No breadboards. No 3D-printed cases. 😄

💡 Why It Matters

The smart home industry treats cloud connectivity as a feature. MiciMike is a compelling argument that for voice assistants, it's actually unnecessary overhead.

Both hardware and firmware are planned for full open-source release. Crowd Supply notifications are open now.

→ Full breakdown with hardware details, pipeline walkthrough, and open-source specs: Read the deep dive

Follow for more IoT and edge computing deep dives — part of my ongoing 101-story series. 🔬

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