Hi everyone, I’d like to control my HA with voice commands. I read that it’s possible to integrate speakers like Alexa, but from what I’ve read, it’s complex and expensive. Is this true? Thanks.
Complex? Depends on the route you take to set it up. Most popular options are -
- Subscribe to Nabu Casa. This is the simplest way and requires the least amount of setup.
- Install the Home Assistant Matter Hub add-on, setup your devices on the hub and share via Matter to Alexa. You’ll need an echo that supports Matter to use this.
- Setup the Alexa Smart Home Skill. This is the most complex to setup, but puts most of the processing on Amazon’s side. You’ll need an external IP. If your router uses CG-NAT, you’ll need to use CloudFlare tunneling to get it to work.
There is the Alexa Devices core integration, which allows you to send text commands as voice commands to your Alexa Devices. It is a newer integration and not fully matured and feature rich, but the developers are doing a great job with it.
Expensive? Depends on your need to invest in more echo devices to put around your living space.
I’d like to avoid subscriptions or fixed costs. So, excluding the first option, what do you recommend? Perhaps option 2 is the simplest?
Yes, option 2 is the most simple and popular choice between 2 & 3. Option 3 isn’t for the feint of heart, but it does rest most of the processing on Amazon’s shoulders, instead of your hardware.
So, for example, I can buy an Echo Dot and immediately start using it to send notifications (for example, the washing machine has finished). Instead, using the Matter Hub, I could be able to give it commands. Is that correct?
Basically, with the matter hub, you’ll add devices to the hub that you setup in Home Assistant and then share them to Alexa via Matter so you can control those devices via voice through Alexa. For example, turn on/off lights. Change the brightness or color of smart lights. Lower or raise or open blinds. Draw curtains. Lock/unlock doors. Etc.
You’ll use the Alexa Devices integration in HA and setup automations using their notify and/or announce entities to send notifications for things around the house, like the washing machine cycle has completed, or the garage door has been open for an hour, etc.
will this work even if most of my devices run on zigbee2mqtt?
Yes. I use option 3. All of my zigbee2mqtt (z2m) devices are shared to Alexa and I can use Alexa voice to control them or get information about them (for sensor specific information).
would they also work with option 2?
I’d imagine so, for whichever entities you setup on the hub and share to Alexa.
Should I buy Alexa Echo or Google Nest (provided there is an addon like the one indicated above)
That is a personal preference. I’d recommend asking people you know that have either what they like/dislike about them. I can only say with my experience with Amazon/Alexa.
What I’ll say is it has fulfilled its main purpose of providing me the ability to control things with my voice and to notify me of things I want to be notified about. I don’t like that it’s internet/cloud based.
Will I change to a different system in the future? Absolutely! Should I ever gather the funds to invest and upgrade my hardware, I would love to host my own LLM and setup voice that is localized and tailored to my specifications.
I also recommend you read the wiki about the Matter hub. It can be used with other matter controllers, not just Alexa, but Google as well.
Just chiming in to say that the Matter Hub is very straightforward to set up and works well. All entities that I have exposed are easily controlled by voice via my Echo Show.
I used the ‘Label’ option, within the Matter Hub, to identify which entities to expose.
Do note, though, that the primary developer has indicated that he needs support and/or a co-maintainer to keep moving this project forward. It is such a good add-on that, hopefully, he gets the help he needs.
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