Confused by XMOS devices and prices - is there no board like the respeaker lite by xmos?

[Spike]

Hello,

I'm new to this whole embedded development so bear with me for the confusion.

I'm trying to build a voice ai assistant that's open source and because of that I'd like to use hardware that ships with software that is at least available in source format (even if not under an open source licence).

So far I found out about respeaker lite by seed studio which looks like a very nice solution for my project, is based on the XU316, however no code is available. It seems the XMOS hardware comes with available source code, which is great, however I cannot find a board like the respeaker in the xmos product line. In fact, the respeaer board costs $27 while the cheapest xmos product seems to go for $140. I don't understand the gap, can someone explain? How can the respeaker ship with the XU316 at that price?

is there any hardware with a xmos board suitable for wake up word and ASR/audio reproduction that I can combine with a esp32 for under $50 and control code on both boards?

thank you and sorry again for the confusion,

[Ross]

The difference here is target market, xmos, generally, makes boards for evaluating before large production runs rather than for hobby-style projects. xmos would typically sell fewer at a higher price than someone like seed looking to sell in volume. xmos would not want to be in competition with such providers also.

Of course, xmos does try and support these users as best we can - plenty of us on here helping out on here, for example.