Best Arduino with WiFi for Audio

#1

Hi all,

I am working on a project that uses an audio model and requires WiFi connectivity.

I’d love to be able to use my Portenta H7 + vision shield - but alas, can’t seem to get the Arduino audio libraries to run properly on it. (If anyone here has had success with this - please let me know! :))

What are my options? I’d love to use Arduino so that I can use the convenient library exports.

#2

Could you use something like an ESP32? I’ve had good luck using the ESP32 boards for WiFi, but I have not used them for ML applications (yet). Alternatively, you might be able to use an ESP8266 as a co-processor for handling your WiFi communications and just use your main board for ML and communicating with the ESP8266 (e.g. through SPI).

For example, I know that the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense works well with Edge Impulse libraries, including audio classification. Pairing that with an ESP8266 might work for your needs.

My experience with the Portenta is similar to yours: I find that many of the libraries simply don’t work, and it’s been a very frustrating experience. It’s also a very expensive board, which only adds to that frustration.

#3

Glad I’m not the only one a little let down by the Portenta so far…

I didn’t know whether ESP32 boards could handle EI libraries. Which one(s) do you have? In theory I would need one with a microphone - for instance the ESP32-EYE. Any chance you have one of these?

If so, if you get a chance to try to run an EI library on it, let me know how it goes!

Thanks for the reply.
Aviel

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#4

I don’t know any ESP32 boards with a built-in microphone. Personally, I would use an I2S MEMS mic to capture sound. I haven’t tried one with the ESP32 yet, but it should (in theory) work. Here is an article showing how to hook one up: https://diyi0t.com/i2s-sound-tutorial-for-esp32/

If I’m able to get the EI library working on the ESP32, I’ll definitely let you know!

#5

Hi @avielbr,

I have been able to classify images with the ESP32-CAM, so sound classification should run on the ESP32 too.

https://github.com/edgeimpulse/example-esp32-cam

Regards,

Louis

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