Show HN: Open-Source Voice AI Badge Powered by ESP32+WebRTC (github.com)

An open-source “voice AI badge” project (vapicon-2025-hardware-workshop) was published that runs real‑time WebRTC audio on an ESP32‑S3 using ESP‑IDF. The repo provides firmware, a WebRTC peer component (deps/libpeer), HTTP client hooks, and hardware abstraction for small badge devices. Developers configure WiFi credentials and a bearer token via idf.py menuconfig, then build and flash with ESP‑IDF v5.5.1 (idf.py build; idf.py flash monitor). The package includes step‑by‑step setup for ESP‑IDF, recommended toolchains, and common troubleshooting (ensure submodules are initialized, use the specified ESP‑IDF version to avoid GCC 13 string truncation/missing enum errors, and check USB/port settings when flashing). Significance for the AI/ML community: this lowers the barrier to creating low‑power, badge‑style voice capture endpoints that stream audio via WebRTC to cloud or local inference services, ideal for conferences, demos, privacy‑aware edge setups, and rapid prototyping. Key technical implications include using libpeer for WebRTC on constrained MCUs, integrating HTTP auth/bearer tokens for secure uplink, and relying on ESP‑IDF’s partitioning and component model—making it straightforward to extend with on‑device ML or connect to remote ASR/LM services.