ASB Clever Kash : Need PCB design help for converting to a smart speaker.

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › ASB Clever Kash : Need PCB design help for converting to a smart speaker.

TommySharp

135 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 14

ID Verified

#323928 4-Feb-2026 09:57

I have 2 of the old Clever Kash devices that my kids no longer use.
So here I am wondering if we could bring them up to date by replacing the internals with something more modern.
I've cracked one open and it's all 2015 based Bluetooth Low Energy based so I'm thinking we could design a new PCB based on the ESP32 chip and hopefully do some kind of drop in replacement.
I'm thinking it also needs a microphone then we can make it a ESPHome based smart speaker that works with home assistant.

I've got some experience coding for the ESP32 with ESPHome but mainly using off the shelf parts so wouldn't know the first thing about designing and making a PCB... But maybe there is a fellow enthusiast whom I could team up with to get this done?

blindnz

42 posts

Geek

#3458599 4-Feb-2026 10:15

I'm not close to an expert. So, consider the below a partially formed opinion:

Any reason you want to use the clever cash? just for the shell? Seems like you are throwing away most of the hardware.

There are otherwise plenty of cheap TFT screens you can interface with to an ESP.

e.g. ESP32 OLED Display with Arduino IDE | Random Nerd Tutorials

It will probably be much harder to interface to the existing screen.

Also as an aside, I'm actually on the lookout for one of these for my kids. Not sure if they still work, but all I can find for my kids at the moment is an actual physical ASB money box.

BarTender

3629 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 2572

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3458669 4-Feb-2026 13:13

It's a bit of a collectors item now from my understanding as they were made back in 2016 and have a quite basic by todays standard CPU and display and you haven't been able to get them from ASB for years now so I would be somewhat reluctant to destroy it. I agree with @blindnz above saying buy a ESP32 with the correct sized OLED if you wanted to replace it like for like.

I don't know if anyone has spent any time inspecting the BLE traffic from the ASB Mobile app to the Clever Kash but I don't think it would be too difficult to figure that out.