As the writing is on the wall for Google Assistant with the pushing of Gemini, I want to be prepared to move to my own local-only voice assistant before Google Assistant is completely killed.
I’ve tried it out briefly and other than some performance issues I need to tweak on model selection for Whisper and Piper, I want to know how people are replacing some of the basic functions of Google Assistant with HA Assist.
I only use the default (“Home Assistant”) conversation agent at the moment.
Here’s a list of things I’ve tried and what happens, and what I’d expect from my experience with Google Assistant.
- Timers - “set a timer for 10 minutes”
- Status: Seems to ‘just work’; say this phrase and a timer is set, and a notification triggers when it lapses
- Expectation:
- Minimum: trigger alarm-type notification
- Preferred: call/intent the clock/timer app on Android so that the OS integration bits still work without re-implementation in the companion app
- Alarm - “set an alarm for 4pm”
- Status: Doesn’t seem to work - “Sorry, I couldn’t understand that”
- Expectation:
- Minimum: triggers an alarm-type notification
- Preferred: call/intent the clock/timer app on Android so that the OS integration bits still work without re-implementation in the companion app
Will keep updating as I try more things.
Is there something that can be enabled/configured to make what happens more align to my expectations without having to create my own automations to do it? (eg, by setting timer/alarm intents)