A private, local voice assistant for your smart home
Home Assistant's Assist voice features can run locally with open-source components.
What to do
- Speech-to-text (e.g. Whisper-based) and text-to-speech (e.g. Piper) can run on local hardware.
- A small local LLM can interpret free-form commands, but restrict it to exposing only the entities you choose.
- Expect a local stack to be slower than cloud assistants on modest hardware.
- See our offline LLM guide for running models without the cloud.
Copy this prompt
Help me design a local voice assistant for Home Assistant on [hardware]. List components for wake word, speech-to-text, intent handling and text-to-speech, and which entities I should expose (exclude locks and alarms).Check the bot's work
Check the Home Assistant documentation for currently supported components.
Questions
Can I trust the bot on local voice ai?
Use it to plan and explain, then verify. Check the Home Assistant documentation for currently supported components.
Which bot works best?
Grok Bot, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all handle this prompt. Paste the same prompt into two and compare; disagreements show where to check a source.
Where these facts come from
- Connectivity Standards Alliance: Matter
- Home Assistant documentation: Automations
- U.S. DOE Energy Saver: Programmable thermostats
- ENERGY STAR: Smart thermostats
- CISA: Secure Our World (passwords, updates, MFA)
- FTC: How to secure your smart devices
- Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI)
- U.S. Fire Administration: Smoke alarms
- OSHA: Electrical safety
Mains (line-voltage) wiring, panels and new circuits: hire a licensed electrician and check permit rules. Never paste passwords or tokens into a chatbot. Checked Oct 30, 2026.
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