What is HiveMind?¶
Voice assistants like Alexa or Google Home are two things wearing one shell: the ears and mouth (a microphone and a speaker) and the brain (the part that understands you and answers). In those products the brain lives in someone else's data center, and every word you say takes a trip to the cloud.
HiveMind pulls those two apart. You run the brain once, on a computer in your own home, and the ears and mouth become small, cheap, interchangeable devices — satellites — that connect to it over your network. The brain is hivemind-core. Everything else plugs into it.
In a nutshell
- Satellites handle hearing and speaking; hivemind-core handles understanding and answering — and serves many satellites at once, each with its own identity and permissions.
- Give hivemind-core an OVOS skills back end for a full voice assistant, or a persona back end to just chat with an LLM.
- Satellites range from a one-line CLI to a full offline voice stack — the thinner the device, the more hivemind-core does for it.
- It's a private gateway around your own assistant, running entirely on hardware you own.
Why split them apart?¶
Because the brain is expensive and the ears are cheap.
Speech recognition, intent parsing, and an LLM need real memory and CPU. A doorway sensor, a desk button, or a ten-dollar board has none of that — but it has a microphone, and that's all a satellite needs. Run the brain once, on a machine that can handle it, and every underpowered gadget in the house can offer the full assistant just by forwarding audio to hivemind-core and playing back the reply.
Three things fall out of that split, for free:
- Privacy. The brain is in your closet, not a cloud. Your voice never leaves the building unless you send it somewhere.
- Reach. Anything that can open a network connection can be a satellite — a browser tab, a microcontroller, a phone, a Raspberry Pi, a chat room.
- Resilience. No internet? No problem. Satellites talk to hivemind-core over the local network, so the assistant keeps working in a blackout or a cabin off the grid.
[Mic Satellite] ──┐
[Voice Relay] ──┤──→ hivemind-core ──→ skills · LLM · intents
[Browser Tab] ──┤ (the brain)
[CLI Client] ──┘ └──→ the reply goes back to whichever satellite asked
What's the brain, exactly?¶
hivemind-core is the meeting point — it authenticates satellites, routes messages, and enforces permissions. It is not the intelligence itself. You choose that and plug it in:
| Back end | You get | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| OVOS skills server | a full private voice assistant — weather, timers, music, home control, hundreds of skills | replacing a smart speaker |
| Persona (LLM) | an LLM with a personality, no skills, simplest setup | open-ended conversation |
| Your own | anything, via the agent-protocol plugins | custom back ends |
Swap the back end and the satellites never notice — they only ever talk to hivemind-core. HiveMind is a gateway around an assistant like OVOS, not a replacement for it.
What's a satellite, exactly?¶
Satellites form a spectrum, and the only question that places a device on it is where the audio is processed. At the thin end, the device forwards raw audio and hivemind-core does everything. At the thick end, the device runs wake word, speech recognition, and speech synthesis itself, and sends hivemind-core only the final text.
| Satellite | Runs on the device | Runs on hivemind-core |
|---|---|---|
| CLI client | nothing (you type) | everything |
| WebSpeech (browser) | mic capture, VAD | speech · intents · skills |
| Mic satellite | mic, VAD | speech · intents · skills |
| Voice relay | mic, VAD, wake word | speech · intents · skills |
| Voice satellite | the whole voice stack | intents · skills |
A thin satellite is cheaper and simpler but leans on the network; a thick one keeps even the audio private and rides out a flaky connection. Most people start thin and thicken the devices that need it. See Choosing a Satellite.
Keep this open
The Glossary defines every term used across the manual on a single page — handy on your first read.
Next: Quick Start — stand up hivemind-core and connect your first satellite.