I can ask Alexa “Alexa, what time is it?” and I get a reply. I am trying to do this disconnected from the internet. Does anybody have an idea? I am new to Home Assistant but I can voice control my lights.
Are you using Alexa to voice control your lights? If so do you have a Home Assistant Cloud subscription, or are you using a custom integration?
I am moving over to HA from Alexa. I am in a high risk zone for hurricanes and go without internet for too long. I am using HA for what Alexa once did for me.
I am older, handicapped and live alone. I am trying to automate everything I can as soon as I can, Thank you for any help. Once I get a few tasks under my belt I should be able to modify more for other uses.
I have setup date/time as a helper but so many instructions over the web involve hardware I dont have. My server has date/time I thought it would be easy to send a “now” time to TTS to get current time but I dont know how to do that.
I use Piper text to speech and it works very well over my RaspiAudio Muse Luxe. Not sure where or if this would work “The time is {{ now().strftime(‘%H %M’) }}”
I use an HA automation that says “X minutes after Y pm” or “X minutes until Y am.”
alias: Assist Tell Time
description: Voice Assistant Tell the Time
trigger:
- platform: conversation
command:
- What is the time
- Tell me the time
- What time is it
- Give me the time
- Time please
condition: []
action:
- set_conversation_response: |-
{% set hour = now().hour %}
{% set minute = now().minute %}
{% set ampm = "AM" %}
{% if hour > 12 %}
{% set hour = hour - 12 %}
{% set ampm = "PM" %}
{% endif %}
{% if minute < 30 %}
The time is now {{minute}} minutes after {{hour}} {{ampm}}
{% elif minute == 30 %}
The time is now {{hour}} {{minute}} {{ampm}}
{% elif minute > 30 %}
{% set minute = 60 - now().minute %}
{% set hour = hour + 1 %}
{% if hour > 12 %}
{% set hour = hour - 12 %}
{% endif %}
The time is now {{minute}} minutes before {{hour}} {{ampm}}
{% endif %}
mode: single
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Than you so much, this looks great! I have never done an automation or script before so I will have to figure out how and where to insert this, I will work on this best I can.
This is far more complicated than I ever expected, I never wanted to become a programmer. I was looking for something to help me out not a new career. I have to abandon my thought that Home Assistant was a replacement for Alexa. When I loose the internet II may be able to work my lights, still better than where I am today.
Thank you for your help! I stepped away for a few days, came back and had your automation running in 20 minutes. Sorry for being terse, some days are better than others
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I’ve been playing around with this as well. This automation works, except that it doesn’t switch from AM to PM. I guess I can figure it out by where the sun is in the sky 
But in all seriousness… It would be nice to have it just simply announce the time in 24-hour format. Any idea how to do that? Nothing I’ve tried works and I’m also not a programmer…
I tried different things with these lines to at least get the AM/PM thing to work, but whatever I try I get a syntax error:
The YAML was written for my US/English/American system, generating 1-to-12 AM/PM responses.
If you prefer a simple 24-hour format, that isn’t terribly difficult:
action:
- set_conversation_response: |-
{% set hour = now().hour %}
{% set minute = now().minute %}
{% if minute < 30 %}
The time is now {{minute}} minutes after {{hour}}
{% elif minute == 30 %}
The time is now {{hour}} {{minute}}
{% elif minute > 30 %}
{% set minute = 60 - now().minute %}
{% set hour = hour + 1 %}
The time is now {{minute}} minutes before {{hour}}
{% endif %}
OK, now I get it… Actually was able to make it say the time just in hours and minutes, either AM/PM format or 24-hour format!
Thank you
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