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2025-05-20 | Audio Bridge Concept: Inspiring Bidirectional Sound & AI Workflows

Veera Pendyala's "Audio Bridge" concept, proven through hands-on experiments, sparked forward-thinking ideas for bi-directional audio and Jetson-powered AI on the Mini-KVM. As a Senior Software Engineer at NVIDIA with 15+ years in software engineering, Veera explored a vision: bringing host ↔ target audio, conversational AI, and home-automation workflows into the USB KVM.

Veera Pendyala, brought a forward-thinking idea to the USB-KVM DIY Challenge 2024. His concept for enabling bidirectional audio with the Openterface Mini-KVM aims to enhance remote control and AI-driven applications, particularly for single-board computers like the Jetson Nano. Veera's experiments with USB audio dongles and his interview sparked inspiring discussions about the potential for audio bridging in home automation and conversational AI workflows.

Veera discussing audio bridge ideas with Billy & Kevin

The Challenge

  • Unidirectional Sound HDMI from Mini-KVM streams target → host audio only, no pathway for host mic to reach the remote device

  • Zero-Infrastructure Goal Any solution must run without internet, external power, or bulky extras

  • AI & Automation Use Cases Veera envisions live speech to a headless device for conversational AI, remote assistance, and home-monitoring scenarios

Proposed Bridge Architecture

  1. Dual USB Sound Adapters

    • Host-side dongle captures local mic/audio
    • Target-side dongle injects that audio into the remote machine's mic jack

  2. Jetson Nano as Audio Router

    • Runs ALSA/PulseAudio to map between the two dongles
    • Hosts OpenterfaceQT for KVM control and potential AI inference

  3. Mini-KVM for Video & Control

    • HDMI carries video and target audio back to the host
    • Single USB link handles keyboard/mouse and (future) audio channels
  4. Software Channel Mapping
    • Proposes extending OpenterfaceQT to expose multiple USB interfaces
    • UI toggle for enabling host mic → target routing alongside KVM streams

Impact & Community

Veera's experiments highlight the breadth of use cases waiting to be unlocked by adding audio into the Mini-KVM ecosystem. His concepts align closely with our roadmap for AI-powered workflows, home automation, and richer remote-IT experiences.

Special thanks to Veera Pendyala for sharing his vision and inspiring our next generation of Mini-KVM features. Learn more and explore other entries on the USB-KVM DIY Challenge 2024 page:

Dive into our YouTube streaming talk, Crowd Supply Teardown with Helen Leigh, Billy R.B. Wang & Kevin Peng, to learn more about Openterface Mini-KVM and the brilliant ideas from the Contest: https://youtu.be/Tp4f_uxEo6E