Sick of waiting for Amazon to release a new Alexa that’s “supercharged” by generative AI? If you’re willing to go the DIY way, you can start controlling your smart home devices with an LLM-powered voice assistant right now.
Home Assistant, a free and open-source home automation platform that’s a favorite among hardcore do-it-yourself smart home enthusiasts, says its Assist voice assistant can now take charge of smart home devices when it’s powered by an LLM—specifically, those offered by OpenAI and Google.
That opens the door to Her-level interactions with Assist such as “Hey, I’m on a Zoom call and people say they can’t see my face, can you fix that?” or “Yo, can you make the room brighter?”
Home Assistant had previously released OpenAI and Google AI integrations for Assist, but until now, the voice assistant didn’t have access to smart home control when it was powered by an LLM.
That’s all changed with this week’s release of Home Assistant Core 2024.6, which opens up home control during LLM-enabled voice chats.
Beyond controlling your smart home devices using natural language prompts, the LLM-powered Assist can understand your intent and solve problems, according to the Home Assistant blog.
So instead of just saying, “Turn office lights to 100 percent,” you can say, “It’s too dark in here, can you help?” and the LLM-based Assist will—in theory, at least–know what to do.
The best news about Home Assistant’s new LLM-enabled voice assistant capabilities is that they’re available right now, and they’re free.
That said, you can’t just go out and buy a Home Assistant speaker. To get started, you’ll need to install the platform on a Raspberry Pi or another computer, and doing so requires getting your hands dirty with code.
Once you have Home Assistant installed, you can start chatting with Assist on the Home Assistant app for iOS or Android. But if you want an actual Home Assistant speaker for voice control (similar to Amazon’s Echo speakers), you’ll need to build one (like the HAL 9000-themed speaker pictured above).
Also, while Home Assistant is free, the OpenAI and Google AI integrations aren’t (Home Assistant suggests enabling usage limits to keep from draining your bank account). Furthermore, those LLMs are cloud-based, a turnoff for Home Assistant aficionados who crave exclusively local control for their home control needs.
Home Assistant says it’s working with Nvidia on developing a local LLM that’s capable of home control.
Personally, I can’t wait to install Home Assistant on my spare Raspberry Pi board and start living out my Her dreams–minus the existential romance, I hope.
