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Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition
$94.99
Control your smart home with your voice using Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition. Switch on lights, control compatible devices and check the temperature without reaching for your phone. Built for Home Assistant, it features dual microphones, advanced audio processing and a physical microphone mute switch for added privacy. Choose local voice processing on compatible hardware or connect to Home Assistant Cloud.
Requires an existing Home Assistant system.
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Description
Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition.
Your home. Your voice. Your choice.
Lights off. Fan on. What’s the temperature? Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition brings hands-free control to your Home Assistant home, with dedicated voice hardware and a choice of local or cloud speech processing.
Already running Home Assistant? You’re ready to add voice. You’ll also need 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, a USB-C cable and a 5 V / 2 A USB power supply. Cable and power supply are sold separately.
Made for Home Assistant
Use Assist, Home Assistant’s built-in voice assistant, to control the compatible devices you’ve made available to voice.
Privacy you can control
Choose how speech is processed, and use the physical mute switch to cut power to the microphones.
Ready to make it yours
Open-source hardware and software, with ESPHome preloaded and plenty of room to customise.
Just say the word.
Hands full in the kitchen? Ask Home Assistant to switch on the lights or turn off the fan. No phone, app or wall switch required.
Voice Preview Edition connects to your existing Home Assistant system. Add your compatible devices to Assist, give them sensible names and start talking.
“Turn off the kitchen lights.”
Sometimes, that’s all you need.
Small box. Thoughtful details.
Good voice control starts with being heard.
Built to hear you.
Two microphones and a dedicated XMOS audio processor help capture your voice. Echo cancellation, stationary noise removal and automatic gain control help clean up the audio.
A proper mute switch.
Want the microphones off? Slide the switch. It physically cuts their power, so muting does not depend on a software setting.
Simple, hands-on controls.
Turn the dial to adjust the volume, use the centre button and watch the multicolour LED ring for feedback. There’s a built-in speaker for voice responses and alerts.
Local or cloud? You choose.
Speech processing runs on your Home Assistant server or through a configured cloud service. Voice Preview Edition handles listening and playback; the right processing option depends on your server, language and what you want to ask.
Focused local voice
Keep everyday home-control commands on your own hardware with Speech-to-Phrase. It can run on lower-powered systems, including Home Assistant Green, but uses supported, predefined phrases rather than general speech.
Full local voice
For more flexible speech recognition, run a local speech-to-text service such as Whisper on suitable hardware. More processing power generally means faster responses. Supported languages and performance vary.
Home Assistant Cloud
Offload speech processing to Home Assistant Cloud, which is useful when your server has limited processing power. This option needs an internet connection and a paid subscription after any trial.
Set it up. Then speak up.
- Plug it in. Connect your USB-C cable and a suitable 5 V / 2 A USB power supply.
- Connect to Home Assistant. Use the updated Home Assistant Companion app with Bluetooth enabled, then follow the discovery prompts to join your 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network.
- Choose your voice setup. Follow the wizard, configure local or cloud processing and expose the devices you want to control to Assist.
No assembly or manual firmware flashing is required for the standard setup.
Connect a speaker.
The 3.5 mm stereo output lets you connect external powered speakers or an amplifier. For music playback, use a suitable integration such as Music Assistant.
Open to a little tinkering.
Happy with the standard setup? Leave it there. Want to go further? Customise the ESPHome firmware, explore compatible Grove accessories or experiment with an AI conversation agent through Home Assistant.
These extras require additional configuration, and some services or accessories have their own costs.
Why “Preview Edition”?
Assist is still evolving. Supported languages, speech recognition and available features depend on your configuration, and it won’t behave exactly like every other voice assistant.
It’s a practical way to bring voice to an existing Home Assistant home, with open-source software you can help shape as it develops.
The finer details
| Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Processor | ESP32-S3 |
| Flash / memory | 16 MB flash; 8 MB octal PSRAM |
| Audio processor | XMOS XU316 |
| Microphones | Dual-microphone array |
| Speaker | Built-in speaker for voice responses and alerts |
| Audio processing | Echo cancellation, stationary noise removal and automatic gain control |
| Connections and controls | |
| Wireless | 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi; Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Power | USB-C, 5 V DC / 2 A |
| Audio output | 3.5 mm stereo jack; TI AIC3204 DAC, 48 kHz sampling |
| Controls | Multipurpose button, rotary dial and physical microphone mute switch |
| Visual feedback | Multicolour LED ring |
| Expansion | Grove port for compatible accessories |
| Firmware | ESPHome preloaded; open-source ESP32 and XMOS firmware |
| Physical details | |
| Dimensions | 84 × 84 × 21 mm |
| Weight | 96 g |
| Enclosure | Injection-moulded polycarbonate; white and semi-transparent |
| Operating conditions | Indoor use; 0–30 °C; non-condensing humidity. Keep dry and away from excessive dust. |
| What you need | |
| Home Assistant | An existing Home Assistant server, updated to a recent version |
| Network | 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi |
| Power accessories | USB-C cable and 5 V / 2 A USB power supply — not included |
| Voice processing | A suitable local speech setup, or Home Assistant Cloud with internet access and a subscription |
A few things worth knowing.
Does it work on its own?
No. Voice Preview Edition needs a separate Home Assistant server, such as Home Assistant Green. It is voice hardware for that system, not a replacement for it.
Do I need a subscription?
Not for a suitable local voice setup. Home Assistant Cloud is an optional paid service for cloud speech processing. Local capabilities depend on your hardware, language and chosen speech tools.
Can it work without the internet?
With a fully local voice pipeline and locally controlled devices, home-control commands can work without internet access. Cloud processing, online services and cloud-dependent devices still need an internet connection.
Will it control all my smart devices?
It can control supported devices integrated with Home Assistant and exposed to Assist. The available actions depend on the integration and your voice setup. It does not add a Zigbee, Z-Wave or Thread radio to your system.
Are the USB-C cable and power supply included?
No. Supply a USB-C cable and a suitable 5 V / 2 A USB power supply separately.
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