Problem with Mic+ in moving the microphone away form the speaker

Hi Folks,

We are currently working on a project to use a Pi Zero, an IR camera, and the Raspiaudio Mic+ for building a Smart Door Bell.
Therefore I got a Mic+ from a friend. It worked fine, but we had problems with the speaker output being recorded by the mic. Therefore we decided to move the microphone further away from the speaker as it is suggested by the Installation Guide (MIC+ installation guide). However, for some reason, the microphone did not work anymore after this step. Because we thought it is probably our fault because we were not careful enough in breaking apart the microphone we ordered a new one. In the case of the new one, we were extremely careful in removing the mic. However, still the same problem no microphone voice can be recorded.

We took a look at the hardware, and it looked perfect, so all connections and electronics looked fine (we also tested the connection with a multimeter). Thus, we thought about a Software issue, although it was working nicely with the non-removed mic of the first board. So we freshly set up the PiZero to test for Software issues and tested several configurations. However, still, we were not able to record anything…

So my question is: Has anyone experienced similar issues? Is it actually possible to remove the mic, so did anyone managed to do that? Is there something that we might have misconfigured? Or did we just have bad luck with our hardware?

Hi Kalklas,

First have you check this doorbell project that uses MIC+?

Yes separating the Microphone of the mic+ is tricky as any presure applied on the microphone the metallic capsule could break it, the trick is to use a sharp cutter to weak the perforated PCB then break it without pressing the mic, it’s not really you fault, send me a private message with your address and we will find a solution.
Plan B will be to use an external I2S microphone as this one [Adafruit I2S MEMS Microphone Breakout - SPH0645LM4H and plug it to the MIC+ provided cable

Feel free to share your project here !

Hi,

thanks for the reply, message sent.

Yes, I took a look at this project before. However, due to security, privacy and data protection reasons I wanted a solution that only works in the local network and only via a direct connection between the doorbell and the clients (Android).
Maybe a remote solution will be introduced in version 2 :wink:
Furthermore my design is smaller and is build in a way that it allows the usage the original good old hardware dorrbell without any modifications or additional software.
As soon as I have the first version of the doorbell finished and working properly I will share the projects GitHub page, which includes all circurit diagramms as well as sourcecode for the Android App and the Doorbell, setup instructions, etc.

I am looking forward to see your local solution ! As it is a better to be able to have a way to hear your doorbell if your internet or google is down. The last google blackout revealed some akward situation like not behing able to turn on the light in your living room without bigbrother watching ! :rofl:

Before I was the CTO of a company making a commercial 4G smart doorbell so I know the subject quite well, but I have a non competition agreement so I can’t work on that subject anymore. :expressionless: