Walkie-talkies are great fun, and [RealCorebb]’s bbTalkie project takes the concept a step further by adding some extremely cool features to make a highly refined, self-contained ESP32-based communicator. bbTalkie completely does away with a push-to-talk button by implementing robust voice detection that works reliably even in noisy environments. It was all designed with cycling in mind, so hands-free operation that stands up to noise is a big plus.
The core of communication is done over ESP-NOW, which is Espressif’s own protocol for direct device-to-device broadcasting. This removes the need to involve any sort of external service like SIM cards or internet access to transmit voice. Performance is best with an external antenna, naturally, but ESP-NOW doesn’t actually require anything other than the existing on-board hardware.
We’ve seen ESP-NOW used to make digital walkie-talkies before, but bbTalkie is a really evolved take on the concept, not least of which due to its hands-free operation.
Because volume-based automatic triggers are highly susceptible to noise, voice detection is done with the help of VADNet, a neural network-based model implemented locally on the device. This system can reliably detect human speech, even in noisy environments. This lets bbTalkie switch between transmit and listen modes automatically and hands-free, without false triggers.
Even when doing all that, there’s still spare capability to play with. Further to the goal of making bbTalkie useful for cyclists in a group, [RealCorebb] added a system that can recognize specific voice commands (like “turn left” for example, or “wait for me!”) which trigger synchronized animations to play on the displays of all connected units. There’s even some experimental support for controlling a camera over Bluetooth, though currently it only supports hardware from Sony.
Watch a tour of it in the video below (Chinese language, English captions available). The OLED screens and animations are adorable, and are great visual feedback of what the unit is doing at any given moment.
Continue reading “These Ultra-Cute, Handsfree Walkie-Talkies Are Built For Cycling”
