Nabu Casa, the company supporting the open-source smart home platform Home Assistant, has launched its first dedicated voice assistant hardware. This marks a significant step toward a more open and privacy-focused alternative in the existing smart home market dominated by big tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple.
The new Home Assistant Voice device allows users to manage their smart home devices via voice commands.
The commands are processed either locally or through Nabu Casa’s Home Assistant Cloud. But what sets this device apart is its commitment to user privacy. It acts as a specialized interface for Assist, Home Assistant’s integrated voice assistant.
“We prioritized its ability to hear commands, giving it an industry-leading dedicated audio processor and dual microphones – I’m always blown away by how well it picks up my voice around the room,” Home Assistant founder Paulus Schoutsen shared in the official announcement.
Out of the box, the palm-sized unit with a semi-transparent, injection-molded shell offers a choice of wake phrases, including “Okay Nabu,” “Hey Jarvis,” and “Hey Mycroft.“
Users can also program their own personalized wake words. Notably, the device supports over 50 languages, significantly more than mainstream offerings.
Emphasis on Local Processing and Enhanced Privacy
A standout feature of the Voice Preview Edition is its capability for local command processing. This means voice data can be processed directly within the home, bypassing the need to send it to the cloud.
Local processing currently necessitates a system with an Intel N100 processor or a comparably powerful setup.
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While requiring robust hardware, the ability to function offline offers a privacy advantage that is likely to resonate with users concerned about data collection. “You can speak to your Voice Preview Edition, and those commands can be processed completely within the walls of your home,” Schoutsen emphasized.
For users who favor speed, Home Assistant Cloud offers a faster processing option with more extensive language support.
Nabu Casa assures that data handled through this service is not stored or used for training models. The device offers more than just voice commands.
It integrates with the smart home configuration to understand room context, enabling users to control devices in a specific room without needing to specify the location.
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For instance, saying “Turn off the lights” in the living room will only turn off lights in that area. It also supports setting timers, managing shopping lists, and carrying out timed commands, such as instructing the TV to turn off after a set period.
Additional features like device aliases offer flexibility in how users refer to their smart home components.
Hardware Details and Customization Options
The Voice Preview Edition includes dual microphones and a specialized XMOS XU316 audio processor. It excels in high-quality sound capture and output, including noise reduction and echo cancellation—key for reliable voice recognition.
The design features a user-friendly rotary dial for volume control, a customizable multi-function button, and an LED ring for visual feedback.
The device is powered by an ESP32-S3 SoC chip, known for its balance of performance, connectivity, and energy efficiency. It comes with 8 MB of RAM and 16 MB of flash memory.
On the exterior, the unit includes a 3.5 mm headphone jack, allowing connections to higher-quality speakers, while an internal speaker is sufficient for basic feedback.
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It also features a USB-C port for power and a Grove port, hidden under a removable cover, that allows for the addition of various sensors and accessories.
In line with open-source principles, design files are available for users to 3D print custom cases, and modifications to the device’s hardware are encouraged, with easy access to screws and exposed circuit board pads.
Assist: The Core of Voice Functionality
Home Assistant’s Assist technology enables voice control, allowing actions like toggling lights, playing media, and fetching information such as weather or time.
“We also introduced aliases to allow you to give devices multiple names, allowing you to speak more naturally with Assist,” explained Mike Hansen, a Home Assistant developer, in a blog post about the launch.
The ability to selectively expose or hide devices from voice control provides detailed management over the voice assistant’s capabilities, distinguishing it from mainstream alternatives.
The Voice Preview Edition can connect to large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini to handle complex queries or act as a fallback for commands it doesn’t understand.
Although Schoutsen admits the system can’t yet answer general knowledge questions, integrating AI models presents a path for future growth. The community-driven development of Home Assistant suggests these capabilities will advance.
“Our community doesn’t want a single voice assistant, they want the one that works for them – they want choice,” Schoutsen stated, underscoring the project’s open-source nature.
Development of Assist continues, with a focus on refining local speech-to-text and expanding language support.
The combination of open-source principles and dedicated hardware positions Home Assistant’s voice control as a formidable player in the smart home market, especially for those who value privacy and customization.
The Voice Preview Edition is priced at approximately 60 euros or 59 dollars, depending on the retailer, and is currently available for purchase. “The era of open, private voice assistants begins now,” Schoutsen remarked proudly.
