---
id: pymicro-vad
version: "2.1.0"
license: Apache
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# pymicro-vad — Self-contained voice activity detector

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 119.5K/mo

## What it is and what it does

pymicro-vad is a lightweight, self-contained voice activity detector built on machine learning architecture from microWakeWord. It takes small chunks of audio (10ms at a time) and returns a probability score indicating whether that chunk contains speech or silence. The detector is designed to run locally without external dependencies or network calls, making it suitable for embedded systems, edge devices, or applications where low latency and offline operation are important.

You feed it raw 16-bit mono PCM audio at 16kHz sample rate, 160 samples per call (exactly 10ms), and it returns a speech probability. Scores below zero indicate the detector needs more audio to make a decision, scores above your chosen threshold indicate speech, and scores in between indicate silence. The package ships with pre-compiled wheels for common Linux platforms, though building from source requires python3-dev and build-essential.

Use it for:

- Real-time speech detection in voice assistant applications to trigger wake-word detection only when speech is present.
- Audio preprocessing in transcription pipelines to skip silence and reduce processing of non-speech segments.
- Endpoint detection in voice recording applications to automatically stop recording when silence is detected.
- Edge device deployment where a lightweight, offline VAD is needed without cloud dependencies.
- Audio stream filtering in IoT devices or embedded systems with limited computational resources.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

A self-contained voice activity detector that processes 10ms chunks of 16-bit mono PCM audio at 16kHz and returns a speech probability score to classify audio as speech or silence.

Yes, if you need a lightweight, offline voice activity detector for real-time audio processing. The package is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, uses a permissive license, and provides pre-built wheels for common platforms. The main constraint is the strict audio format requirement (10ms chunks of 16-bit mono PCM at 16kHz), which you must handle yourself.

## Install

pip install pymicro-vad
uv add pymicro-vad
poetry add pymicro-vad

## Installing pymicro-vad

Before you install: Medium install friction due to compiled wheels; the package provides pre-built binaries for x86_64 and aarch64 on manylinux platforms. Actively maintained with a recent release.

License in practice: Licensed under Apache (permissive), so you can use it freely in commercial and open-source projects without copyleft obligations.

Quickstart:

pip install pymicro-vad

from pymicro_vad import MicroVad

vad = MicroVad()
threshold = 0.5

# Process 10ms chunks of 16-bit mono PCM @16kHz
while audio := get_10ms_of_audio():
    speech_prob = vad.process_10ms(audio)
    if speech_prob > threshold:
        print("Speech detected")

Requires Python 3.9+; audio input must be exactly 160 samples (10ms at 16kHz) of 16-bit mono PCM data per call.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the model weights are included in the wheel or downloaded separately on first use.
- Latency and CPU overhead of processing 10ms chunks in real-time scenarios.
- Accuracy of speech detection across different acoustic environments and speaker profiles.

## Package facts

- License: Apache (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: medium
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 119.5K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

voice activity detection, VAD audio processing, speech detection, audio classification, real-time speech detection, PCM audio analysis, voice detection library, audio-processing, machine-learning, edge-computing

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