HiveMind Voice Relay Documentation
July 31, 2026 ยท View on GitHub
Local wakeword detection. STT and TTS run remotely on hivemind-core with the hivemind-audio-binary-protocol plugin.
What is HiveMind Voice Relay?
HiveMind Voice Relay is a satellite client for the HiveMind mesh. It runs the microphone, voice-activity detection (VAD), and wakeword engine on-device, but forwards audio to hivemind-core running the hivemind-audio-binary-protocol plugin for speech-to-text (STT). The server synthesises speech (TTS) and sends audio back for local playback.
The point is architectural, not just resource savings: the hive owns STT/TTS. They run inside hivemind-core (via the hivemind-audio-binary-protocol plugin), behind the same access-key authentication as the rest of the mesh. A relay does not, and cannot, choose its own STT/TTS engine, model, or voice. The hive operator decides, centrally, for every relay. (Contrast a voice-sat, which can point at any plugin, including a public ovos-stt-plugin-server.) Relay also demonstrates the base64 speech API (recognizer_loop:b64_transcribe / speak:b64_audio), the same job mic-satellite does over the binary protocol.
Satellite spectrum
| Satellite | Mic | VAD | Wake word | STT | TTS | Connects to |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HiveMind-cli | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | hivemind-core |
| hivemind-mic-satellite | local | local | server | server | server | core + audio-binary-protocol |
| HiveMind-voice-relay | local | local | local | server | server | core + audio-binary-protocol |
| HiveMind-voice-sat | local | local | local | local | local | hivemind-core |
Choose voice-relay when:
- You want HiveMind to own and govern STT/TTS as an authenticated service, uniform engine/model/voice across all relays, decided by the hive operator, not the device.
- You want wakeword detection on-device (latency, privacy, audio is not streamed until activation).
- You do not want to run STT or TTS models on the device (a welcome consequence, not the main reason).
- Your
hivemind-coreserver has thehivemind-audio-binary-protocolplugin installed.
Navigation
| Page | Audience |
|---|---|
| Getting started | First-time users |
| Configuration | Plugin setup, all CLI flags |
| Architecture | How the relay pipeline works internally |
| Deployment | systemd, Raspberry Pi, autostart |
| Development & tests | Install from source, run + understand the E2E suite |
| Troubleshooting | Common problems and fixes |