Taking Control of Your Smart Home Privacy

Exploring Home Assistant Voice Preview

There’s a lot to love about smart home tech — but let’s face it, many voice assistants come with trade-offs. The convenience is great, but handing over your voice data to big cloud platforms? Not so much.

That’s why I’ve been exploring Home Assistant Voice Preview, and I’ve got to say: it feels like a real shift in how we can interact with our homes — on our terms.

Why I Tried It

I've been using Home Assistant for a while, and what keeps me coming back is its open, community-driven ethos. When I heard they were working on a local voice assistant, I had to take a closer look.

This new Voice Preview Edition lets you issue voice commands to your smart home — without sending anything to the cloud. It’s all processed locally. That means your voice, your data, stays within the walls of your own home.

First Impressions

Setting it up was easier than expected. I picked up the hardware from PiHut, plugged it in, followed the setup guide — and just like that, I was talking to my home.

Is it perfect yet? No — it’s very much a preview, and you can feel that. But what’s exciting is the potential. This isn’t about competing with Alexa or Google Assistant on flash — it’s about building something more respectful of you.

What Stood Out

• Local Processing: No cloud. No streaming your voice to servers.

• Open Source: You can see exactly how it works, tweak it, contribute to it.

• Privacy-First Design: Voice stays local, intent stays yours.

• Community-Backed: Built by people who care about control and transparency.

Want to Try It?

If you're curious, here are a few helpful links:

• 🔗 Home Assistant Voice Preview

• 🛠️ Home Assistant Documentation

• 💬 Home Assistant Community Forum

Final Thoughts

For me, this is less about a gadget and more about a mindset — taking back control of our smart homes, one voice command at a time.

If you’re already using Home Assistant, or thinking about getting started, I’d recommend keeping an eye on how this voice feature evolves. It’s a glimpse of what smart homes could be: private, personal, and under your control.

🎥 Watch the full video to see how it works in action.