[antonyt]

You can do exactly that - set up an Assist pipeline that glues together services running wherever you want, including a GPU node for faster-whisper. The HA interface even has a screen where you can test your pipeline with your computer’s microphone.

It’s not exactly batteries-included, and doesn’t exercise the on-device wake word detection that satellite hardware would provide, but it’s doable.

But I don’t know that the unit will be an “upgrade” over most headsets. These devices are designed to be cheap, low-power, and have to function in tougher scenarios than speaking directly into a boom mic.

[frognumber]

It's an upgrade mostly because putting on a headset to talk to an assistant means it's not worth using the assistant.

[ilaksh]

Does it use Node-RED for the pipeline?

[haddonist]

No, all of the voice parts are either inbuilt or direct addons.