While automation runs actived by sentence, no wakeword is possible

Dear All,

I just created an automation which let’s the lamp on the front corner of our ground blink, so that the pizzaboy in the evening finds us.

The automation is voice-activated. It checks a Boolean-helper for ending the blinking. The helper should be switched off by another automation - voice activated.

“OK Nabu - start front corner blinking”.

BUT !!! During the execution there is no wakeword-recognition.
So I have to set the helper to Off manually. When I do this, not only the automation ends, but also the voice “Done” is spoken and the wakeword-recognition is possible again.

Does anybody know if there is a setting to run any automation based on the voice assist async, in the background, say “Done” immediately and let the automation do it’s job and start listen immediately?

Any help appreciated.
Best regards Jörg

I noticed the same when I tried to create an automation to have Assist send a notification to my phone with a list of items on a to-do list. The pipeline would stay open until I swiped the notification away, then Assist would say “Done” and I could use wakeword again.

Workaround in my case was not using the automation system but instead creating a
custom sentence and an intent script. Done this way I was also able to customize the Assist response to whatever I wanted, instead of ‘Done’.

The difference between

  • a trigger in an automation
  • a custom intent in the configuration.yaml

seems to be that the first is processed in the wakeword-thread (which is blocked until)
versus the second is queued and processed in a different thread.

Maybe it’s not reall implemented in “threading”, but the effect is exactly that.
So you got the solution. Thanks

Regards Jörg

P.S.: I was playing with the modes “In Warteschlange” / “Parallel”, but this doesn’t work when the calling task is not taking care… I think this is a …bug.

Just in case somebody is looking for a solution:

Here is a detailed description about async execution of scripts:
Asynchronous automation steps - Configuration - Home Assistant Community (home-assistant.io)

This explains the current and future implementation.
Thank you Jason for this post.