Podcasts

Ask Niles to research a topic, by voice or in the app. A few minutes later you get a short episode, at most 8 minutes, of two hosts talking it through, with the sources listed underneath. Listen in the app or on a Sonos speaker.

It's free, fast, and the scripts are voiced without leaving the house. Niles does the research with its web search, writes the two-host script, and then records it itself, line by line, in each host's voice.

The recommended setup is Kokoro, which you run yourself, and a private Cloudflare R2 bucket with an access key for that bucket only.

Running KokoroCopy Anchor Link

The voices come from Kokoro-FastAPI, the fastest way to run the Kokoro voices. Run it on a machine in the house, on port 8880, and give Niles the address it reaches it at, such as http://192.168.1.11:8880 or http://kokoro.ns.svc:8880 on Kubernetes. A trailing /v1 or / is fine, Niles tidies it up. Nothing here is sent to a hosted voice service: the voices are made on your Kokoro.

Making the bucketCopy Anchor Link

Podcasts are stored in a private Cloudflare R2 bucket:

1. Create one bucket per Niles, and keep it private.
2. Create an API token scoped to that bucket only, with Object Read & Write permissions.
3. Note the account's S3 endpoint, https://<account-id>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com.
4. Add a lifecycle rule of about 30 days that deletes old objects. It is only a backstop — Niles deletes each episode itself when its time is up.

Setting up in the appCopy Anchor Link

Under Settings → Add-ons, add Podcasts and fill in:

• Kokoro address — the internal address of your Kokoro-FastAPI.
• R2 endpoint — the account's S3 address, with nothing after it.
• Bucket — the bucket's name.
• Region — auto for Cloudflare R2; it is only used for signing.
• Access key ID and Secret access key — the token's two halves. They go into the secret store, never into the config.
• First host and Second host — the two voices, picked from the English voices your Kokoro lists. They must differ.
• Keep episodes for (days) — how long an episode is kept, 1 to 365, 14 by default.

Then press Test. It says a one-second sample in each host's voice and checks it is MP3, then uploads a tiny file, reads it back the same way the app and Sonos do, and deletes it. Working shows only when both parts pass; otherwise it says which part failed and why. Nothing of the test answer names your address or keys.

AskingCopy Anchor Link

By voice or in the app's chat:

• "make me a quick podcast about …"
• "play the podcast about … in the kitchen"

The episode appears under Saved: "Researching…", then "Recording…", then ready, and a notification says when it is done. "Play … in the kitchen" plays it on the kitchen's Sonos; a room without a Sonos is told so, and it never plays on a satellite.

Episodes are in English, whatever language you ask in.

What is kept, and for how longCopy Anchor Link

Each episode is one MP3 in your bucket and a document under Saved. It is kept for the number of days you chose, counted from when it was made, and the episode says until when. After that the recording and the document are deleted together, and anyone you shared it with is told it's gone. Deleting an episode yourself removes the recording too. A finished episode cannot be edited or re-recorded — ask for a new one instead.

PrivacyCopy Anchor Link

• The research goes through Claude or ChatGPT and the web search, like any other background job.
• The voices are made on your Kokoro.
• The audio stays in your bucket; nothing is made public.
• A play link is signed and lasts 4 hours, then a new one is made on demand. It names the access key ID, never its secret.

Removing itCopy Anchor Link

Remove the add-on under Settings → Add-ons. Its keys and settings are deleted, and no new episodes can be made. Episodes already recorded stay in the bucket until its lifecycle rule clears them, and can no longer be played.