{"id":39312,"date":"2026-02-18T07:45:54","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T12:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/?p=39312"},"modified":"2026-02-04T02:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T07:12:17","slug":"via-hackaday-these-ultra-cute-handsfree-walkie-talkies-are-built-for-cycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/2026\/02\/18\/via-hackaday-these-ultra-cute-handsfree-walkie-talkies-are-built-for-cycling\/","title":{"rendered":"via Hackaday: These Ultra-Cute, Handsfree Walkie-Talkies Are Built For Cycling"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Walkie-talkies are great fun, and [RealCorebb]\u2019s bbTalkie project<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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Hands-free, wireless, self-contained digital walkie-talkies that can connect in a group. What\u2019s not to like?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The core of communication is done over ESP-NOW, which is Espressif\u2019s 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\u2019t actually require anything other than the existing on-board hardware.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen ESP-NOW used to make digital walkie-talkies before<\/a>, but bbTalkie is a really evolved take on the concept, not least of which due to its hands-free operation.<\/p>\n

Because volume-based automatic triggers are highly susceptible to noise, voice detection is done with the help of VADNet<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

Even when doing all that, there\u2019s 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 \u201cturn left\u201d for example, or \u201cwait for me!\u201d) which trigger synchronized animations to play on the displays of all connected units. There\u2019s even some experimental support for controlling a camera over Bluetooth, though currently it only supports hardware from Sony.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Blog \u2013 Hackaday Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walkie-talkies are great fun, and [RealCorebb]\u2019s bbTalkie project takes the concept a step further by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_16139062_16139062":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[1722,1309,110,4809,3978,3977],"class_list":["post-39312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hackaday","tag-cycling","tag-esp32","tag-hackaday","tag-hands-free","tag-ht","tag-walkie-talkie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39482,"href":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39312\/revisions\/39482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twiar.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}