Since the voice assistant on the HA Voice PE can be activated with a short press of the centre button, I would like the option for it not to listen for a wake word at all, but still activate the voice assistant in response to the button.
This could be presented in the UI as an additional option in the ‘Wake word’ dropdown menu, alongside “Hey Nabu” etc.
Rationale:
it reassures family members who don’t want the PE “listening all the time”, while still allowing voice assistance.
the button is more convenient to use than the mic switch, and cannot be accidentally left ‘on’ after use.
if the PE is out of reach of children, it reduces the risk of un-desired interaction by requiring a button press to activate the assistance functions.
The other argument for this is that I’d like to disable the wake word to avoid inadvertent activations but not physically mute the mic so that the device is still available for the “ask a question” action.
I also would like very much a feature to temporarily disable the wake word.
When I am running the tv, every 10 minutes home assistant voice preview edition reacts to something said on tv as if I had spoken the wake word and tries to interpret the noises/speech on tv.
That is very disturbing.
I would like to build an automation which reacts to sentences “wake word on” / “wake word off” pressing the button on homeassistant voice.
Or maybe a configurable double press on the device could also be used for that purpose ?
The microphone switch on homeassistant voice is not good for that purpose, I need both hands to set that. If trying to switch it with one hand, the devics moves away. And I would lose the option to activate assistance by pressing the button !