Voice Assistant hardware requirements for the *server* end

Configuration Voice Assistant
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I did some interesting tests earlier today. I’m running Home Assistant on a VM under Proxmox. It initially had two CPUs.

I ran a voice automation with a fairly complex and long response, and that took about 12 seconds before I started hearing anything. I did it again and watched the CPU usage on the HA VM. For about eight seconds, it was at 95-100%.

So then I gave the VM two more CPUs (for a total of four) and ran the same automation. This time it took only about six seconds.

I’m looking to buy dedicated hardware to run HA on, so that I don’t have all the moving parts of Proxmox for part of my critical infrastructure. I was thinking about getting a Beelink mini PC or similar, but now I’m wondering if I should go with something more powerful. The cost (within reason) isn’t really as important to me as fast voice response - especially with an eye toward adding local AI to the mix later (although I could run that on other dedicated hardware if needed). Thoughts anyone?

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Before messing too much with hardware try to use VOSK for stt, its not as accurate but it is much faster. Works for me and made voice assistant useable.

I run proxmox on an HP T630, so not powerful hardware.

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I hadn’t seen that before. I’ll check it out. Thanks for the pointer!