Every time you say "Hey Google" or "Alexa," your voice gets shipped to a server farm, processed, stored, and sometimes listened to by actual humans. Home Assistant does voice control differently: everything stays on your hardware, in your home, under your control.
Google has been gutting Assistant since 2023. Smart home commands break randomly. Routines disappear. Third-party integrations get dropped. If you're relying on Google for voice control, you're building on sand.
Amazon admitted that Alexa recordings are stored indefinitely. Google had contractors listening to Assistant recordings. Apple's Siri had the same issue. With Home Assistant, your voice never leaves your local network.
Cloud assistants are completely useless during internet outages. Home Assistant's voice pipeline runs locally, so "turn off the lights" works whether your ISP is up or not.
Alexa wants you to buy Echo devices. Google wants Nest. Apple wants HomePods. Home Assistant voice works with cheap ESP32 boards, old tablets, or basically any device with a microphone and speaker.
The entire voice pipeline runs on your local hardware. Here's what happens when you say a command:
Your device listens for a wake word (like "Hey Jarvis") using microWakeWord or openWakeWord. This runs on the device itself, not in the cloud. No audio is sent anywhere until the wake word triggers.
Your voice command gets converted to text using Whisper, running locally on your Home Assistant server. OpenAI released Whisper as open source, so you get the same quality as cloud services, with zero data leaving your network.
Home Assistant figures out what you meant. "Turn on the kitchen lights" maps to the right entity and action. You can also define custom sentences for complex automations, like "movie time" to dim lights, close blinds, and turn on the TV.
Home Assistant responds using Piper, a fast local TTS engine with natural-sounding voices. The response plays through your satellite speaker or any connected audio device. All local, all private.
The cheapest way to get voice control in any room. This tiny ESP32 device has a built-in microphone and speaker. Flash it with the ESPHome firmware and it becomes a voice satellite that talks directly to Home Assistant.
Best for: Adding voice to rooms on a budget. Sound quality is basic but functional.
A proper voice assistant with a touchscreen display, better microphone array, and decent speaker. Shows visual feedback for commands and can display dashboards. Works great on a nightstand or kitchen counter.
Best for: Primary rooms where you want both voice control and a visual display.
Mount an old Android tablet on the wall running the Home Assistant app. Pair it with a decent Bluetooth speaker for audio output. You get a full dashboard plus voice control, and it looks great as a dedicated smart home panel.
Best for: Main living areas, hallways, or kitchens where you want a full control center.
Home Assistant Assist understands natural language for smart home control. Here are real commands that work out of the box:
Custom sentences are the real power move. Define your own trigger phrases that map to any automation. "I'm leaving" could lock doors, turn off lights, arm the alarm, and adjust the thermostat. One phrase, unlimited actions.
Here's how it actually stacks up:
| Feature | Home Assistant | Alexa | Siri | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local processing | ✓ Full | ✗ | ✗ | Partial |
| Works offline | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Custom wake words | ✓ | Limited | ✗ | ✗ |
| Custom commands | ✓ Unlimited | Via Routines | Via Routines | Shortcuts |
| Monthly cost | $0 | $0* | $0* | $0* |
| Voice data stored | Never | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Device compatibility | 2000+ | 100k+ | 50k+ | Limited |
*Free but you pay with your data. Amazon and Google monetize your voice interactions and purchase patterns.
You don't need to replace everything at once. Start with one room and expand from there.
If you don't have Home Assistant yet, grab a Home Assistant Green or Yellow. Plug it in, connect to your network, and you're running in about 15 minutes.
Go to Settings > Add-ons and install Whisper (speech-to-text), Piper (text-to-speech), and openWakeWord. These are one-click installs from the official add-on store. Total time: about 10 minutes.
Under Settings > Voice assistants, create a new Assist pipeline. Select Whisper for STT, Piper for TTS, and your preferred wake word. Pick a Piper voice you like (there are dozens in different languages).
Flash an M5Stack ATOM Echo or ESP32-S3 Box with ESPHome. It shows up automatically in Home Assistant. Assign it to a room and your voice pipeline, and you're done. Say the wake word and start controlling things.
You can keep your existing smart devices and add private voice control on top.
Google's killing features left and right. Move your Nest, Chromecast, and smart speakers to a platform that actually improves over time.
Tired of Alexa pushing ads and subscriptions? Your Echo devices can still work as speakers while Home Assistant handles the smart stuff.
Love Apple's privacy stance but frustrated by limited device support? Home Assistant gives you the same privacy with 10x the compatibility.
Yes. Home Assistant has built-in voice control through its Assist pipeline. You can use wake words, natural language commands, and custom sentences. The big difference: everything processes locally on your hardware, so your voice data never leaves your home.
At minimum, a microphone and speaker connected to your Home Assistant device. The easiest option is the $13 ATOM Echo from M5Stack, which works as a dedicated voice satellite. You can also use ESP32-S3 boards with microphones, or repurpose old Android tablets as voice panels.
Yes, fully. Home Assistant uses local speech-to-text (Whisper) and text-to-speech (Piper) that run entirely on your hardware. No internet connection required. Your voice commands work even during an internet outage.
For smart home commands like turning lights on, setting temperatures, and running automations, it works very well. For general knowledge questions and conversational AI, Alexa and Google are still ahead. But Home Assistant is improving rapidly, and for home control specifically, the gap is small.
Yes. Home Assistant supports custom wake words through openWakeWord and microWakeWord. You can train your own wake word or choose from community-created ones. Popular options include "Hey Jarvis," "Hey Mycroft," or anything you want to train yourself.
Start with a free device scan to see which of your current smart home devices work with Home Assistant. Then add voice control on your own terms.