this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024

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homeassistant

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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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The era of open voice assistants has arrived - Home Assistant (www.home-assistant.io)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[+] [email protected] -38 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Why the flying fuck does everyone seem to use voice assistants and AI bullshit. I don't need to waste five seconds to get a bullshit response and to repeat myself when I don't get the wrong answer or to switch the light in the room next to me when I can make ten steps

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Voice assistants have been great in my experience for smart home stuff. Dunno about ai bullshit

Few examples:

Come home in the evening with a bunch of groceries: “turn on the lights” is handy. I don’t see great and yet I’m irresponsible and will walk into a dark house with way too many bags in my hands

Cooking: again, hands busy. Change lighting, set timers, play music, etc

General laziness: sitting on the couch and decide to watch a movie, set a scene for optimal lighting. Granted this one is easily handled by using phone or just standing up, but voice is easier

Solid mic choice and placement avoids the repeat myself issue, for the most part. Can be an issue mainly during cooking tasks where there can be a lot of environmental noise and loud music playing. But worth the occasional snag, imo

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (2 children)

For turning on lights and starting and stopping a Heatpump, voice assistants are awesome.

Turning on and off lights and setting timers is what most people use Alexa for. And a certain number use it for music too.

Most people don’t use any of the “assistant” or “ai” features these smart speakers have.

I’ve found it difficult to find other uses. But these ones are great.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (12 children)

No POE = Deal breaker for me

Although it's a very promising start. Looks great.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Is the whole stack open source or do we have to buy their hardware or license their software?

Their device does look very slick, but I'd like to hack my own system together!

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago

It’s all OSS.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I wish I could repurpose my Home Minis to use this. Google butchered those entirely over time, so now they're practically collecting dust, when I dont use them as an occasional room speaker

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I feel the same but in 2026 and with echo flex.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

I mean...kinda?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago (4 children)

I'm so excited for this! I was able to make an order. Homeassistant is making such a difference here. I was a Mycroft supporter and it's so great that since they've gone away we've still got hardware in this space. This hardware makes so much sense too, I hope the voice train keeps rolling!

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Are there difference between this and a 13$ M5 Atom Echo?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Yes

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Because of googles enshitification I have stopped using voice to control my home entirely. I invested in many scene remotes and built extensive automations. I've come to not miss voice control at all. But here's to you that want this either for assistive needs or just because. I just need to get a few more local TTS speakers for alerts.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I've had my eye on this for a while, haven't dropped the dough on a PCB order

https://github.com/justLV/onju-voice

A hackable AI home assistant platform using the Google Nest Mini (2nd gen) form factor, consisting of:

a custom PCB designed to be a drop-in replacement to the original, using the ESP32-S3 for audio processing

a server for handling the transcription, response generation and Text-to-Speech from multiple devices on the same network

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Ordered. I'm am so excited for this as it seems it could replace my only use case for Google Home / Nest voice.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Neat! I hope we can add on a speaker, we use ours for playing audio

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (2 children)

if you want to use it as a media player, connect a speaker to the included 3.5mm headphone jack and control it with software like Music Assistant.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

God idk how I missed that, but thank you

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