WakeCore

Open hotword detection for private voice systems. Lokale Hotword-Erkennung für private KI-Systeme.

WakeCore is a cross-language SDK family for embedding always-listening hotword ("wake-word") detection into your applications. Detection runs entirely on-device — no cloud calls, no API keys, no telemetry — so you stay in control of the microphone signal.

Drop a .wake file into your app, point WakeCore at it, and you get on-device hotword detection. Custom .wake files for your own phrases are produced by the WakeCore generator at https://wakecore.de.

Quick start

Python

pip install wakecore[audio]
wakecore install-engine

from wakecore import Runtime, AudioCapture

with Runtime.load("hey_computer.wake") as rt, \
     AudioCapture(rt.sample_rate, rt.frame_length) as mic:
    for frame in mic:
        if rt.process(frame):
            print("wake!")

Node.js

npm install wakecore

const { Runtime } = require("wakecore");
const rt = Runtime.load("hey_computer.wake");
// feed PCM-16 mono frames of rt.bytesPerFrame bytes
rt.close();

Rust

[dependencies]
wakecore = "0.1"

let mut rt = wakecore::Runtime::load("hey_computer.wake")?;
let frame = [0i16; 512];
if rt.process(&frame)? { println!("wake!"); }

Supported platforms (8 OS families, 17 binary variants)

Family	Architectures
Linux	x86_64, i386
macOS	x86_64, arm64
Windows	amd64, i686
Raspberry Pi	cortex-a7, cortex-a53, arm11
ARM Linux	a9-neon (generic ARMv7+NEON)
Android	x86, x86_64, armeabi-v7a, arm64-v8a
iOS	universal static
watchOS	universal static

What's in this repository

Path	Purpose
hotwords/*.wake	Ready-to-use sample hotword files
engine/<plat>/<arch>/<ver>/	Native engine binary per platform
engine/<plat>/<arch>/<ver>/SHA256SUMS	Integrity manifest

The .wake file format

.wake files are sealed binary containers — opaque to user code. The SDK simply hands the body to the bundled inference engine. New .wake files are produced by the WakeCore generator service.

Audio format

• Sample rate: 16,000 Hz
• Channels: mono
• Sample format: 16-bit signed little-endian PCM
• Frame size: 512 samples per process() call (~32 ms)

Why WakeCore

	WakeCore	Cloud APIs	Other open SDKs
On-device	✓	✗	✓
No API key	✓	✗	✓
Cross-language	✓ Python · Node.js · C · C++ · C# · Rust	varies	usually single-language
Free tier	✓ first hotword free	rare	training-yourself
German-aware	✓	rarely	rarely
.wake files portable across platforms	✓	n/a	varies

Tags

audio · speech · hotword · wake-word · keyword-spotting · voice-assistant · private-voice · german · on-device · edge-ai · iot

Links

• GitHub: https://github.com/keyvan-ai/wakecore
• Website: https://wakecore.de
• Generator: https://api.wakecore.de
• License: MIT