Onju Voice
Replace a Nest Mini motherboard with a custom ESP32-S3 board, reusing the enclosure and speaker.
Specific modification route · Family onju-voice · Reviewed 2026-10-20
What changes for this device
Before
The Google Nest Mini's original motherboard and services limit custom voice pipelines.
After
The enclosure and some acoustic components are retained, while a custom ESP32-S3 motherboard connects external voice and model services.
The author's original 2023 X post and later explanation confirm the board-replacement route. The post describes a voice-agent scenario, not a language model running inside the Nest Mini itself. The original version is no longer actively maintained and is useful as a hardware-reuse case study. Onju v2 is a successor in the same family; an old video does not prove every v2 feature.
A good fit for
People willing to buy or make a PCB, disassemble the speaker and maintain external voice services.
Not a good fit for
People expecting a downloaded program to jailbreak the original device or all inference to run inside the speaker.
Proposed reproduction checks
- Check the Nest Mini generation, PCB revision and bill of materials.
- Verify microphone, speaker, network and server separately.
- Test complete conversations and behavior without a network; keep the original motherboard.
These hardware checks have not been performed by this catalog.
What you need
- Method
- Replace motherboard
- Difficulty (editorial judgment)
- Advanced
- Disassembly
- Required
- Soldering
- Depends on assembly
- Cloud API / service
- Optional
- Cost amount
- Not priced / UNKNOWN
Possible additional costs
- Onju PCBA
- Disassembly tools
- Host
- Optional cloud voice/API services
Prices have not been checked. An open-source license does not make hardware, hosting, electricity or cloud services free.
Risks and recovery
Data-loss risk: Possible; Bricking risk: Possible. Route-based guidance, not hardware-tested; these outcomes are not inevitable for every device.
Keeping the original motherboard offers a hardware rollback option. Software cannot reverse damage caused during disassembly.
Recovery documentation (no verified link)
Evidence and maintenance
E2 · Author hardware claim / demonstration
The author provides PCB, firmware and server instructions. The README says active maintenance has ended and points to onju-v2. An independent maker's video description reports a modification demonstration, but the video was not played, so this is not verified independent reproduction. The author's original X text, board-replacement explanation and video component were viewed; video frames were not verified.
Catalog hands-on testing: not performed. Independent reproduction: not verified.
- Maintenance
- Maintenance ended by author
- Last GitHub push
- 2026-04-13T06:53:08Z
- Repository license
- MIT
An unarchived repository or recent push does not prove a model works. Mirror migration does not mean development has stopped.
A root license or README declaration does not establish the same license for firmware, models, brands and third-party components.
Sources
- Upstream documentation · 2026-10-20 · Content reviewed
- Original author X post · Text read; video frames not verified
Original sources may be in Chinese or English. Review means reading public material; recheck upstream models, services and firmware before acting.