How to install a male voice on a robot vacuum cleaner Xiaomi: all the ways and nuances

Xiaomi’s robot vacuum cleaners have become an integral part of modern smart homes, but the standard female assistant voice is not popular for all users. Many owners want to personalize the device by installing a male voice — a stricter, deeper or just familiar. In this article, we will discuss all the current ways to change voice on Mi Robot, Dreame, Viomi and other models of the brand.

It is important to understand that the process depends on the firmware, device region and version of the Mi Home/Xiaomi Home application. Somewhere just a few clicks in the settings, and in some cases you will need to manually update the firmware or even flash through ADB. We will look at the options from the simplest to the most complex so you can choose the right one.

If you're just planning on buying a robot vacuum cleaner and you want to know in advance about the possibility of changing your voice, at the end of this article, there's a comparison table of models that support this feature, and for those who have already experienced problems with changing their voice, we've prepared a section with typical errors and their solutions.

What Xiaomi models support voice change?

Not all Xiaomi robot vacuum cleaners allow you to change the voice of the assistant.

• 🤖 Mi Robot Vacuum-Mop 2 Pro and newer (including Ultra, S10+)
• 🧹 Dreame D9, D10 Plus, Bot W10 and others with firmware after 2021
• 🏠 Viomi V3, SE Alpha series (for Chinese firmware only)
• 🔄 Roborock S7/S8 (Requires reflashing to the Chinese version)

Models older than 2019 (Mi Robot 1S, Dreame D6) do not usually support voice change at the software level, and their only option is a hardware speaker replacement with alternative voice firmware, which is difficult and not always legal.

To find out exactly if your model supports voice change, check the firmware version in the Mi Home app: Device Profile → Settings → About the device → The firmware version, if the version is newer 3.5.8_000123 (for Mi Home or 1.5.0_0045 (For Dreame, the odds are high.

Method 1: Change voice through the Mi Home app (official method)

The easiest way is to use the app's built-in settings, which works for most modern models with international firmware.

Instructions:

1. Open the Mi Home or Xiaomi Home app.
2. Select your robot vacuum cleaner from the list of devices.
3. Go to Settings → Voice prompts (or Voice Pack in English).
4. In the Voice of the Assistant section, select the male option (usually indicated as Male or icon). 👨).
5. Confirm the voice loading – the process can take up to 5 minutes.
6. Reboot the device through Settings → Reboot.

If your app does not have Voice prompts, it means:

• 🔄 The device runs on outdated firmware (renew it manually).
• 🌍 The region of the device does not support this feature (try changing the region in the app settings to China or Singapore).
• 📱 The app version is outdated (update Mi Home to the latest version in Google Play or App Store).

Important! After a change of voice, some phrases may sound less natural, because the male voice in firmware is often recorded with fewer intonations than the female voice. If the sound quality is not satisfied, go back to the female voice or try alternative methods in the following sections.

Method 2: Installing a male voice through alternative firmware

If the official method doesn't work, you can install a male voice through custom firmware, which is suitable for advanced users and requires ADB or special utilities.

Popular firmware with a male voice:

• 🛠️ Valetudo – open firmware for robot vacuum cleaners, supports the replacement of voice packets.
• 🌐 Xiaomi Mi Home Hack – modified software with advanced voice settings.
• 📦 DustBuilder – a tool for creating custom firmware with voice selection.

Step-by-step instructions for Valetudo:

1. Download the latest version of Valetudo from the official repository.
2. Connect to the robot vacuum cleaner by SSH (instructions are in the documentation Valetudo).
3. Download the male voice pack (for example, male_voice_pack.zip) folder /mnt/data/miio/.
4. Follow the command: mv /mnt/data/miio/male_voice_pack.zip /mnt/data/miio/voice_pack.zip chmod 755 /mnt/data/miio/voice_pack.zip
5. Reboot the device with the reboot command.

Roborock models (such as the S7) will require a re-flashing to the Chinese version of the software, followed by voice installation via Mi Home in the China region, and detailed flashing guides are available on the 4PDA and XDA Developers forums.

⚠️ Note: The use of custom firmware may violate the warranty of Xiaomi.If the robot vacuum cleaner warranties, it is better to wait for the official update with support for male voice.

Method 3: Manual firmware update with male voice

Some enthusiasts are posting modified firmware with a male voice already built in, a method that is suitable for devices that don’t support voice change through settings but have an unlocked bootloader.

Where to look for firmware:

• 🔗 Forum 4PDA (section “Robot vacuum cleaners").
• 🔧 GitHub repositories (e.g., GitHub repositories, dontvacuum/me).
• 📥 Telegram channels dedicated to hacking smart Xiaomi equipment.

Instructions for updating:

1. Download firmware with a male voice (for example, mi_vacuum_male_voice_1.2.3_0045.pkg).
2. Place the file in the microSD card root folder (if your model supports memory cards).
3. Insert the card into the robot vacuum cleaner (the connector is usually under the cover next to the power button).
4. Press the Home (or Reset) button for 10 seconds until the update indicator lights up.
5. Wait until the process is complete (the robot will beep).

If your model doesn’t support microSD upgrades, use ADB:

adb push mi_vacuum_male_voice_1.2.3_0045.pkg /tmp/


adb shell




cd /tmp/




chmod 777 mi_vacuum_male_voice_1.2.3_0045.pkg




./mi_vacuum_male_voice_1.2.3_0045.pkg

Before upgrading, check the firmware compatibility with your model. Installing firmware from another model can cause the device to fail.

Method 4: Using third-party voice packets (for advanced)

If you don't like the standard male voice from firmware, you can install an alternative voice package, such as voices from Alice (Yandex), Google Assistant or even self-recorded voices.

This will require:

• 🎤 Write or download voice files in.wav format (16 kHz, mono).
• 📁 Pack them up in the archives. voice_pack.zip folder-like.
• 🔧 Download the package to the robot vacuum cleaner through ADB or SCP.

Example of folder structure for voice packet:

voice_pack/




├── en/ #English




│ ├── 100.wav # "Getting clean up"




│ ├── 200.wav # "Charge complete"




│   └── ...




├── ru/ # Russian




│   ├── 100.wav




│   └── ...




└── config.json # Event-associated file configuration

Ready-made voice packets can be found on specialized forums, for example, there are voice packets:

• 🎬 Actors (Morgan Freeman, Arnold Schwarzenegger – for English-language firmware).
• 🤖 AI Assistants (Jarvis, Friday by Iron Man).
• 🎮 Characters from games (GLaDOS from Portal, Cortana from Halo).

⚠️ Warning: Replacing voice files can cause crashes if the files don't match the expected format.Always test new voices on firmware backup.

Compatibility table of models with male voice

To make it easier to choose, we have compiled a table with support for male voice in popular Xiaomi models:

If your model is not in the table, check the information on the official Xiaomi website or forums, and you can also write in support with a question about the planned addition of a male voice in future updates.

💡

Before buying a robot vacuum cleaner, check with the seller the firmware region. Chinese market (CN) models often have more features, including voice selection, but may not support Russian in the interface.

Typical errors and their solutions

When changing voices, users often face problems. Let's take a look at the most common ones:

• 🔊 Voice unchanged after reboot Solution: Remove the Mi Home app cache and repeat the procedure. If it doesn't work, manually update the firmware.
• 📵 Solution: Check out the robot vacuum model and download the package for it. For example, Dreame voices won't work for Viomi.
• 🔄 The robot got stuck after a firmware update Solution: Reset to factory settings by holding the Reset button for 15 seconds. If it doesn't work, reflash through ADB.
• 🎵 Voice sounds robotic or jammed Solution: Check the bitrate of voice files - it should be 128 kbps or higher. WAV (PCM).

If none of these things worked, maybe your model doesn't support voice change at the software level, so you have to either accept a female voice or consider buying another model with the right function.

💡

Before any firmware manipulation, back up the original software. This can be done via ADB by adb backup -f backup.ab -apk -shared.

FAQ: Frequent questions about changing voices on Xiaomi robot vacuum cleaners