Home Assistant's New Voice Assistant Answers To 'Hey Jarvis'

Home Assistant (not to be confused with the Google Assistant on Google Home) has launched the Voice Preview Edition (Voice PE), its first dedicated voice assistant hardware for $59. The device offers a privacy-focused, locally controlled solution that supports over 50 languages and integrates seamlessly with the open-source smart home platform. As The Verge notes, Voice PE supports the wake words "Hey Jarvis" right out of the box. From the report: The Voice PE is a small white box, about the size of your palm, with dual microphones and an audio processor. An internal speaker lets you hear the assistant, but you can also connect a speaker to it via a 3.5 mm headphone jack for better-quality media playback. A colored LED ring on top of the Voice PE indicates when the assistant is listening. It surrounds a rotary dial and a physical button, which is used for setup and to talk to the voice assistant without using the wake word. The button can also be customized to do whatever you want (because this is Home Assistant). A physical mute switch is on the side, and the device is powered by USB-C (charger and cable not included). There's also a Grove port where you can add sensors and other accessories.

For those who don't like the idea of always-listening microphones in their home from companies such as Amazon and Google, but who still want the convenience of controlling their home with their voice, the potential here is huge. But it may be a while until Voice PE is ready to replace your Echo or Nest smart speaker. [...] if you want more features, Voice PE can connect to supported AI models, such as ChatGPT or Gemini, to fully replace Assist or use it as a fallback for commands it doesn't understand. But for many smart home users, there will be plenty of value in a simple, inexpensive device that lets you turn your lights on and off, start a timer, and execute other useful commands with your voice without relying on an internet connection.

Re:

[Baron_Yam]

I agree - though with Home Assistant the mic listens for the keyword you programmed it to listen for, and it transmits to the server you installed in your own home. It's not like Bezos is snooping.

Also, you could in theory put a WiFi or Zigbee button next near one of the voice assistant mics and just require a button press to register before the system takes input.

Ideally you'd have that all wrapped up in one package, though. It's not there yet, but the day will come.

Re: "always-listening microphones"

[wgoodman]

There is a button hardware disconnect the microphone, and there is a button that can be used as a trigger instead. In addition, all of the code/hardware is open source so you can audit to your bitter heart's content.

Re:

[dfghjk]

"It's not like Bezos is snooping."

No, it's exactly like that. You're just relying on the long-standing lie of open source, you do not audit OR modify any of this code, you don't "program" anything this abomination will "listen for".

When a company sells you a full time surveillance product, they are Big Brother. When FOSS copies it years later, it "huge" potential. But the news here is that the name is Jarvis. Fantastic.

Re:

[GrahamJ]

Yes that's why we're into home automation - so that when we want a light on we have to get up and activate a manual control. Genius!

Re:

[dfghjk]

If it's for automation, what's the need for voice control?

Re:

[derplord]

HA can be operated in a completely isolated environment, for example in a VLAN where you have your other IOT devices that does not permit connections outside and has _full_ functionality.

So even if it "listens all the time", it won't and can't send any data outside.

Re:

[dfghjk]

So it provably does no damage while offering nothing of value. And by "HA", you mean "Voice Assistant", that's the subject. The concern isn't that HA is always on.

HA and voice

[Baron_Yam]

You have been able to run a fully-local voice assistant with Home Assistant for some time, though even with a full server-class PC instead of a RaspberryPi I didn't find the voice recognition good enough to be more than a toy. But that was pretty much as soon as you could do it, I'm sure it's improved a lot already.

Rather than an always-on mic listening for a keyword, I think a wall intercom or even a smartwatch to capture audio after a touch command would be more practical.

The flexibility is nice. I set it up so I could ask it to tell my kids or my spouse something, and it would relay what ever I said after, "Tell [name]" to their phone's TTS subsystem. It's also handier than a smartphone screen keyboard, except for the part where you have to load up the HA app and trigger the voice assistant first. If I ever figure out how to map it to my phone's spare physical button, that'll be a game changer.

Re: HA and voice

[wgoodman]

The ability to map the phone's assistant button to HA has been a thing for years now. If other people have the HA app installed, you can do all of that. If they don't, you can always use the options baked into your phone to dictate a txt.

Re:

[Baron_Yam]

Huh. I'll be looking in to that very soon.

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[Baron_Yam]

I found an option in the companion app to use a headset talk button, but nothing that would let me use an arbitrary physical phone button without a third party app.

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[fodder69]

The shame was that Snips had a pretty robust on device voice assistant but got bought out by Sonos and buried. Four years ago, I had it tied into Alexis (if you wanted) and had some direct integrations with some Alexis games and even had it tied into text adventure emulators like Zork, etc.

And yes, it answered to 'Hey, Jarvis'. Sigh, gotta love the consolidation enshittification.

Jarvis

[rossdee]

Jarvis was a Govt agent in the Puppet Masters (played by Richard Belzer) He was taken over by the aliens.

Supported Phrases

[Kunedog]

Ask it why it isn't smoking and you'll have a bad day.

Re:

[Miles_O'Toole]

Tony Stark's butler was black? I had no idea!

Almost there

[raminf]

In my last job, I got to play with early versions of voice control of HA devices. It worked reasonably well, but they had an exit hatch to send requests to ChatGPT for processing. The local stuff was too slow and clunky for consumer use, and sending it to the cloud meant you were sending all your in-home interactions out to the abyss.

This device sounds like it's a variation of the ESP32-S3 voice controller (demo https://www.home-assistant.io/... [home-assistant.io]).

Will be more interesting once their in-home servers like (htt

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

Hey Jarvis! Open Visual Studio Code, edit garage_light.yaml, type the following yaml...

[Three hours later]

WTF? Why is the light still off? Maybe if I change the YAML here.... Hey, Jarvis!

OK Computer

[erik.martino]

All these personal names for assistants, I am not convinced. In Star Trek NG they nailed it. They just call the computer for computer. You may argue that the computer is an actual device you have in front of you, but that is increasingly just a terminal for the services and AI behind. So I suggest in the spirit of the Google Assistant's original hot-word "OK Google" that we should address the assistant "OK Computer". No reference to Radiohead at all :)