Xiaozhi Esp32 MCP Server

An MCP-based Chatbot

(English | 中文 | 日本語)

Introduction

📖 XiaoZhi AI Guides & Help

👉 Human: Give AI a camera vs AI: Instantly finds out the owner hasn't washed hair for three days【bilibili】

👉 Handcraft your AI girlfriend, beginner's guide【bilibili】

As a voice interaction entry, the XiaoZhi AI chatbot leverages the AI capabilities of large models like Qwen / DeepSeek, and achieves multi-terminal control via the MCP protocol.

<img src="docs/mcp-based-graph.jpg" alt="Control everything via MCP" width="320">

Recent Updates

• The project now requires ESP-IDF v6.0.1 or later. ESP-IDF release/v6.1 is the recommended SDK branch. ESP-IDF 5.x is no longer supported. The current matrix contains 171 variants; ESP32-S31 builds require IDF 6.1 or later.
• MQTT and BluFi cryptographic code has migrated to PSA Crypto. IDF 6 component splits and third-party dependency compatibility have also been addressed.
• Audio pipeline concurrency, MQTT/UDP packet validation, and release-matrix selection have been hardened.
• ESP32-P4 Rev1 and Rev3 are both supported on IDF 6 with ESP-SR 2.4.7.

Features Implemented

• Wi-Fi, wired Ethernet, USB RNDIS, and ML307/EC801E or NT26 Cat.1 4G networking; supported boards can switch between Wi-Fi and 4G
• Offline voice wake-up with ESP-SR, including customizable wake words
• Two communication transports: WebSocket and MQTT + UDP
• Opus audio streaming with conventional streaming ASR + LLM + TTS pipelines and Realtime end-to-end voice models; AEC-capable hardware supports realtime full-duplex interaction
• Speaker recognition, identifies the current speaker 3D Speaker
• OLED / LCD displays with emoji and rich expression support, plus camera vision input on supported boards
• Battery display and power management
• 39 interface languages, with localized voice prompts where available and English fallback
• ESP32, ESP32-C3, ESP32-C5, ESP32-C6, ESP32-S3, and ESP32-P4 chip platforms
• Wi-Fi provisioning through hotspot or BluFi
• Device-side MCP for device control (Speaker, LED, Servo, GPIO, etc.)
• Cloud-side MCP to extend large model capabilities (smart home control, PC desktop operation, knowledge search, email, etc.)
• Customizable wake words, fonts, emojis, and chat backgrounds with online web-based editing (Custom Assets Generator)

Hardware

Breadboard DIY Practice

Follow the step-by-step breadboard tutorial:

👉 ESP32-S3 Breadboard Tutorial

Breadboard demo:

Supports 138 Board Directories and 171 Release Variants (Partial List)

• <a href="https://oshwhub.com/li-chuang-kai-fa-ban/li-chuang-shi-zhan-pai-esp32-s3-kai-fa-ban" target="_blank" title="LiChuang ESP32-S3 Development Board">LiChuang ESP32-S3 Development Board</a>
• <a href="https://github.com/espressif/esp-box" target="_blank" title="Espressif ESP32-S3-BOX-3">Espressif ESP32-S3-BOX-3</a>
• <a href="https://docs.m5stack.com/zh_CN/core/CoreS3" target="_blank" title="M5Stack CoreS3">M5Stack CoreS3</a>
• <a href="https://docs.m5stack.com/en/atom/Atomic%20Echo%20Base" target="_blank" title="AtomS3R + Echo Base">M5Stack AtomS3R + Echo Base</a>
• <a href="https://gf.bilibili.com/item/detail/1108782064" target="_blank" title="Magic Button 2.4">Magic Button 2.4</a>
• <a href="https://www.waveshare.net/shop/ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-1.8.htm" target="_blank" title="Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-1.8">Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-1.8</a>
• <a href="https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/T-Circle-S3" target="_blank" title="LILYGO T-Circle-S3">LILYGO T-Circle-S3</a>
• <a href="https://oshwhub.com/tenclass01/xmini_c3" target="_blank" title="XiaGe Mini C3">XiaGe Mini C3</a>
• <a href="https://oshwhub.com/movecall/cuican-ai-pendant-lights-up-y" target="_blank" title="Movecall CuiCan ESP32S3">CuiCan AI Pendant</a>
• <a href="https://github.com/WMnologo/xingzhi-ai" target="_blank" title="WMnologo-Xingzhi-1.54">WMnologo-Xingzhi-1.54TFT</a>
• <a href="https://www.seeedstudio.com/SenseCAP-Watcher-W1-A-p-5979.html" target="_blank" title="SenseCAP Watcher">SenseCAP Watcher</a>
• <a href="https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1BHJtz6E2S/" target="_blank" title="ESP-HI Low Cost Robot Dog">ESP-HI Low Cost Robot Dog</a>

<div style="display: flex; justify-content: space-between;"> <a href="docs/v1/lichuang-s3.jpg" target="_blank" title="LiChuang ESP32-S3 Development Board"> <img src="docs/v1/lichuang-s3.jpg" width="240" /> </a> <a href="docs/v1/espbox3.jpg" target="_blank" title="Espressif ESP32-S3-BOX3"> <img src="docs/v1/espbox3.jpg" width="240" /> </a> <a href="docs/v1/m5cores3.jpg" target="_blank" title="M5Stack CoreS3"> <img src="docs/v1/m5cores3.jpg" width="240" /> </a> <a href="docs/v1/atoms3r.jpg" target="_blank" title="AtomS3R + Echo Base"> <img src="docs/v1/atoms3r.jpg" width="240" /> </a> <a href="docs/v1/magiclick.jpg" target="_blank" title="Magic Button 2.4"> <img src="docs/v1/magiclick.jpg" width="240" /> </a> <a href="docs/v1/waveshare.jpg" target="_blank" title="Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-AMOLED-1.8"> <img src="docs/v1/waveshare.jpg" width="240" /> </a> <a href="docs/v1/lilygo-t-circle-s3.jpg" target="_blank" title="LILYGO T-Circle-S3"> <img src="docs/v1/lilygo-t-circle-s3.jpg" width="240" /> </a> <a href="docs/v1/xmini-c3.jpg" target="_blank" title="XiaGe Mini C3"> <img src="docs/v1/xmini-c3.jpg" width="240" /> </a> <a href="docs/v1/movecall-cuican-esp32s3.jpg" target="_blank" title="CuiCan"> <img src="docs/v1/movecall-cuican-esp32s3.jpg" width="240" /> </a> <a href="docs/v1/wmnologo_xingzhi_1.54.jpg" target="_blank" title="WMnologo-Xingzhi-1.54"> <img src="docs/v1/wmnologo_xingzhi_1.54.jpg" width="240" /> </a> <a href="docs/v1/sensecap_watcher.jpg" target="_blank" title="SenseCAP Watcher"> <img src="docs/v1/sensecap_watcher.jpg" width="240" /> </a> <a href="docs/v1/esp-hi.jpg" target="_blank" title="ESP-HI Low Cost Robot Dog"> <img src="docs/v1/esp-hi.jpg" width="240" /> </a> </div>

Software

Firmware Flashing

For beginners, it is recommended to use the firmware that can be flashed without setting up a development environment.

The firmware connects to the official xiaozhi.me server by default. Personal users can register an account to use the Qwen real-time model for free.

👉 Beginner's Firmware Flashing Guide

Development Environment

• Cursor or VSCode
• Install the ESP-IDF plugin. The minimum SDK is ESP-IDF v6.0.1; ESP-IDF release/v6.1 is recommended. ESP-IDF 5.x is not supported.
• Linux is better than Windows for faster compilation and fewer driver issues
• This project uses Google C++ code style, please ensure compliance when submitting code

Use the release/v6.1 branch rather than the v6.1 release tag: an ESP32-C3 Wi-Fi initialization failure with that tag is reported in #2344. After switching SDK revisions, run git submodule update --init --recursive in the ESP-IDF directory, source its export.sh, and run idf.py fullclean in this project before rebuilding.

Developer Documentation

• Custom Board Guide - Learn how to create custom boards for XiaoZhi AI
• OTA Configuration, Activation, and Firmware Updates - Device bootstrap HTTP API and protocol capability reporting
• MCP Protocol IoT Control Usage - Learn how to control IoT devices via MCP protocol
• MCP Protocol Interaction Flow - Device-side MCP protocol implementation
• MQTT + UDP Hybrid Communication Protocol Document
• A detailed WebSocket communication protocol document

Large Model Configuration

If you already have a XiaoZhi AI chatbot device and have connected to the official server, you can log in to the xiaozhi.me console for configuration.

👉 Backend Operation Video Tutorial (Old Interface)

Related Open Source Projects

For server deployment on personal computers, refer to the following open-source projects:

• xinnan-tech/xiaozhi-esp32-server Python server
• joey-zhou/xiaozhi-esp32-server-java Java server
• AnimeAIChat/xiaozhi-server-go Golang server
• hackers365/xiaozhi-esp32-server-golang Golang server

Other client projects using the XiaoZhi communication protocol:

• huangjunsen0406/py-xiaozhi Python client
• TOM88812/xiaozhi-android-client Android client
• 100askTeam/xiaozhi-linux Linux client by 100ask
• 78/xiaozhi-sf32 Bluetooth chip firmware by Sichuan
• QuecPython/solution-xiaozhiAI QuecPython firmware by Quectel

Custom Assets Tools:

• 78/xiaozhi-assets-generator Custom Assets Generator (Wake words, fonts, emojis, backgrounds)

About the Project

This is an open-source ESP32 project, released under the MIT license, allowing anyone to use it for free, including for commercial purposes.

We hope this project helps everyone understand AI hardware development and apply rapidly evolving large language models to real hardware devices.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to raise Issues or join our Discord or QQ group: 1095994019

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