Private Voice Assistant That Runs in Your House
Speech-to-text, text-to-speech and wake words processed locally with Home Assistant Assist.
Home Assistant's Assist pipeline can understand voice commands without sending audio to the cloud. Local engines handle speech recognition, speech output and wake-word detection.
Video tutorial
Video by Smart Home Circle, embedded from YouTube. The written steps below are our own and match the parts list.
Mission steps
Start with Home Assistant
Complete the Home Assistant on Pi 5 guide first.
Add the voice engines
Install the Whisper (speech-to-text), Piper (text-to-speech) and openWakeWord add-ons, then add them through the Wyoming Protocol integration.
Create a voice pipeline
Settings → Voice assistants → Add: choose your language (English or Spanish), Whisper, Piper and a wake word.
Add a satellite
Use a second Pi or an ESP32-S3 voice board with a microphone and speaker as a room satellite, so you can talk to the house from anywhere.
Speak
'Turn off the kitchen lights.' Expose only the devices you want voice to control.
Questions
Is it as good as cloud assistants?
For home control commands, local recognition is fast and accurate. Open-ended conversation needs more computing power or an optional AI integration.