HuskerMinion/techo5

What TECHO5 is

TECHO5 is open firmware for Amazon Echo devices, starting with the Echo Show 5. It replaces Fire OS and Alexa with a small Alpine Linux image and a single Go daemon, so the device boots into a local Home Assistant voice satellite with a touch screen. Wake word detection runs on the device; voice audio goes to the reader's own Home Assistant over the ESPHome API rather than to Amazon (2).

The project also covers the Echo Show 5 1st gen, both Echo Show 8 generations, the Echo Spot, Echo Dot, and an Echo Show 8 2nd gen port with its own mainline kernel. The daemon (echod) derives from EchoLocal and adds the Show's screen, camera, Bluetooth, update slots, and SIP calling (2). It is aimed at Home Assistant users comfortable unlocking hardware and flashing firmware.

Quick start

Prerequisites: an unlocked device already running the supported LineageOS build (for a 2nd gen Echo Show 5, LineageOS 18.1 v0.4 or the 1st gen's v0.7), a USB cable, a computer with Python 3, adb, fastboot, and a working Home Assistant installation (2).

git clone https://github.com/HuskerMinion/techo5
cd techo5
python3 tools/install-show.py

The installer detects the Show, asks for a name, confirms before erasing, downloads and verifies the latest release, flashes the boot image, creates the update slot store, installs over the USB serial console, and prints where the Home Assistant key is stored (2). Releases carry the boot image and root filesystem; nothing is built locally (3). Detailed manual steps and troubleshooting are in the install documentation (2).

Other devices use different installers or repositories: the Echo Show 8 2nd gen uses tools/install-athena.py after an unlock (15), and Echo Dot/Spot models are covered by sibling repositories (13)(14).

Constraints and caveats

• Installation erases the device and requires a working bootloader unlock for that model. The 2nd gen Echo Show 8 has no LineageOS and needs the saiyaku-athena unlock first (2).
• The 2nd gen Show 5 requires a specific LineageOS 18.1 build; a newer v0.5 is not supported yet (2).
• The built-in microphone pipeline does not use Amazon's factory voice processing, so wake-word performance will not match Alexa at its best (2).
• The project describes itself as a hobby project rather than a product, and asks users to keep backups and expect rough edges (2).
• SSH is keys-only and off by default; the camera and screen web pages start closed (2).
• Licensed MIT, with third-party notices in NOTICE (2).

HotRepo's take

TECHO5 appeared on HotRepo's Go monthly list for 15 November 2026 with 375 stars gained in that period and a best position of 17 on that monthly Go chart. That places it among the more visible Go projects in that month's snapshot. The repository's own device table lists daily use across multiple Echo Show 5, Show 8, Spot, and Dot units, plus working-but-untried devices, which supports the claim that this is a maintained port rather than a one-off experiment. The project's strongest distinguishing detail is the hardware scope: it spans several Echo generations with shared daemon code, including a mainline-kernel Show 8 port, while keeping the original firmware and Home Assistant integration central.