Here are some pictures of the inside of my Talkie Toaster.
Below is a picture of the frame that everything sits on. Lots of wires and connections.
Bottom right is the audio amplifier, and the sound to light section (so that it lights up when Talkie talks)
Microcontrollers are located in the middle section.
At the top there is a microphone and a speaker.

Below is an end view looking from the end opposite the amplifier.
it is the voice detection. It was a kit I purchased that sort of worked like one of those clappers they used to advertise (“clap-on, clap-off, clapper”). the difference is I modified the last bit to give me a 5v logic voltage instead of activating a relay. This modification can be seen in the top right of the green pcb. You can also see where I hide the batteries to run this all.

Below is the SRF05 sensor addition that I just completed mounted in the unit, I have done some tests and it seems like it is all working well.
The two silver tubes are part of the SRF05 detector unit.
Immediately below the SRF05 is the controller I used stripboard and a Picaxe 08.

Previously in Talkie toaster I used an LDR to sense people.
Basically a medium bright light would have to be pointing at the toaster and someone casting shade on the sensor would activate the speech circuit. This changed the voltage on a analogue input of a Picaxe microcontroller.
The idea originally was that the sensor could determine different shades to know the distance of objects Talkie was talking to, but light comes from too many locations in a room and nothing how I expected.
The new sensor determines distance (quite accurately). But then just translates this to a logic level to trigger sound. It reliably ignores objects too far away.
I set the program with a maximum and minimum distance anything outside the range is ignored.