Voice Pipeline
Overview
The home runs a fully local, cloud-independent voice pipeline using HA's Assist framework. The pipeline is anchored by a Home Assistant Voice PE device in the Bedroom and composed of four add-on components. An Ollama LLM provides conversational AI beyond basic HA commands.
Pipeline Components
1. Wake Word — openWakeWord
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Add-on | core_openwakeword v2.1.0 |
| Protocol | Wyoming |
| Entity | wake_word.openwakeword |
| Purpose | Passively listens for wake phrase on the HA Voice PE microphone |
2. Speech-to-Text
Two local STT options:
| Option | Add-on | Version | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speech-to-Phrase | core_speech-to-phrase | 1.4.3 | Fast home control commands |
| Whisper | core_whisper | 3.2.0 | Free-form speech, better accuracy |
| HA Cloud | — | — | Fallback cloud STT |
Recommendation: Use Speech-to-Phrase as primary for HA commands — it's significantly faster than Whisper for intent-matched phrases.
3. Conversation / Intent Processing
| Option | Entity | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Home Assistant | conversation.home_assistant |
Built-in intent matching for HA commands |
| Ollama | conversation.ollama_conversation |
Local LLM (qwen3:4b-instruct at 192.168.1.85:11434) |
4. Text-to-Speech
| Option | Add-on | Version | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Piper | core_piper | 2.2.2 | Local neural TTS (offline) |
| Google Translate | — | — | Cloud TTS (requires internet) |
| HA Cloud | — | — | Nabu Casa cloud TTS |
Hardware — HA Voice PE
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Device | Home Assistant Voice 0919e8 |
| Model | Home Assistant Voice PE |
| Manufacturer | Nabu Casa |
| Firmware | ESPHome 2026.3.2 |
| Area | Bedroom |
The Voice PE connects to HA via the ESPHome integration over local LAN.
Controls:
Conversation Pipelines
HA supports multiple named pipelines. The Voice PE's assistant_2 select entity allows switching between pipelines at runtime.
Typical pipelines:
- Default — Speech-to-Phrase → Home Assistant Assist → Piper
- LLM — Whisper → Ollama → Piper
- Cloud — HA Cloud STT → HA Cloud TTS
Announcement Targets
Beyond the Voice PE, TTS announcements can be pushed to any media_player entity. Key announcement targets:
| Target | Entity | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| HA Voice PE | media_player.home_assistant_voice_0919e8 |
Primary |
| Bedroom Echo Show 5 | media_player.bedroom |
Alexa |
| VLC | media_player.vlc_telnet |
Local fallback |
| Everywhere (MA group) | media_player.everywhere |
All speakers |
Notes / Gotchas
- The Ollama server runs on a separate machine at
192.168.1.85:11434. If that machine is off, the Ollama conversation agent will be unavailable — HA Assist built-in handles fallback. - Whisper model size affects accuracy vs. speed. Check the Whisper add-on configuration for the selected model (tiny/base/small/medium).
- Speech-to-Phrase requires a custom vocabulary configuration to recognize non-standard commands — check add-on settings for custom phrase lists.
- The Voice PE LED ring color indicates pipeline state: idle (off/dim), listening (blue), processing (yellow), error (red) — exact colors depend on ESPHome firmware version.
Last Updated
2026-06-24