Having microphone sensitivity issues? Try this

[altua]

So, you've got hold of one of the really cool Google Home mic in kits that SnekTek sell, get it all set up and then realise that your microphone isn't sensitive enough, or sounds like this?

The attachment clip.m4a is no longer available

Apparently this is caused by the line in signal voltage, which seems like a really complicated thing to get your head around. Well, I came up with a neat little way round this issue which sorted out my system out.

You will need:
- Google Home, modified with a SnekTek line in board (obviously)
- Raspberry Pi (doesn't matter which model, just flash it with Raspbian)
- USB sound card like this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00 ... UTF8&psc=1
- AUX cable to connect from the Pi's audio out to the Google Home

Steps:
- Start by installing Raspbian on your Pi, which is available from here https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/noobs/
- Next, connect your microphone to the USB sound card's audio in, and the Google Home to the audio out
- Connect the USB sound card to the Pi
- Go into the Audio Device Settings by following the orange, green and finally blue arrows in screen shot 1 below

- Verify that the USB sound card is selected from the drop down menu on the window that has just opened, this is shown by the red arrow on screen shot 2.

- Click on the speaker below the microphone slider, shown by the turquoise arrow on screen shot 2. This will re-transmit the audio from your microphone out to the Google Home. If this worked you should now be able to listen to the microphone if you plug a pair of headphones in where the Google Home's AUX is connected. Use the sliders to adjust the audio levels so that the Google Home can hear you properly.

Now when your Google Home listens to your microphone it should be able to clearly hear what you are saying, just like this clip that Jonathon uploaded

clip.m4a

(221.99 KiB) Downloaded 2884 times

This simple fix worked really well for me, hopefully it'll sort out any issues that other people are having too!

Alex

[jonathan]

Hey Alex, thanks for the post, but I can't see the pictures. Can you try attaching them again?

[altua]

Ah sorry about that, hopefully it's working now!