Home Assistant Unveils Secure Voice Assistant For Total Home Control

Home Assistant’s New Voice Assistant Brings Local Control and Privacy Focus to Smart Homes

The Voice Preview Edition (PE), a new hardware product from Home Assistant, aims to provide users with locally controlled, privacy-focused voice control in their homes. Priced at $59, the small white box features dual microphones, an audio processor, and an internal speaker.

Users can interact with the voice assistant using various wake words, including “Okay Nabu,” “Hey Jarvis,” or “Hey Mycroft.” The device also includes a physical button that can be customized to perform specific tasks and a mute switch for added control. The Voice PE supports over 50 languages, a significant improvement compared to other popular voice assistants.

One of the standout features of Home Assistant’s Voice PE is its ability to run locally in your home without an internet connection, eliminating the need for cloud-based services. This means that users’ data remains on their devices, providing an additional layer of privacy.

Home Assistant’s Year of the Voice initiative has been instrumental in developing this technology. Nabu Casa, the organization behind Home Assistant, aimed to provide users with locally controlled, privately, and in their own language. The effort has led to significant progress, with improvements in speech recognition, natural language processing, and device control.

The Verge’s Callie Wright, a Home Assistant superuser, has been testing the Voice PE for several weeks. While impressed with its capabilities, she notes that it still lags behind Amazon Alexa in terms of overall functionality. However, she acknowledges the progress made by Home Assistant and expresses optimism about its future potential.

Paulus Schoutsen, founder of Home Assistant, recognizes that the current capabilities of the voice assistant may not be enough for everyone. “For some, our voice assistant will be all they need, especially those who just want to set timers, manage their shopping list, and control their most used devices,” he says. “For others, we understand they want to ask their voice assistant to make whale sounds or to tell them how tall Taylor Swift is — our voice assistant doesn’t do those things… yet.”

As Home Assistant continues to develop its voice assistant technology, it remains to be seen whether the Voice PE will be able to surpass popular voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant. However, with its focus on local control, privacy, and community-driven development, the potential for growth is significant.