Voice Assistant

ESPHome devices with a microphone are able to stream the audio to Home Assistant and be processed there by assist.

Note

Voice Assistant requires Home Assistant 2023.5 or later.

Warning

Audio and voice components consume a significant amount of resources (RAM, CPU) on the device.

Crashes are likely to occur if you include too many additional components in your device’s configuration. In particular, Bluetooth/BLE components are known to cause issues when used in combination with Voice Assistant and/or other audio components.

Configuration:

microphone:
  - platform: ...
    id: mic_id

voice_assistant:
  microphone: mic_id
  • microphone (Required, ID): The microphone to use for input.

  • speaker (Optional, ID): The speaker to use to output the response. Cannot be used with media_player below.

  • media_player (Optional, ID): The media_player to use to output the response. Cannot be used with speaker above.

  • use_wake_word (Optional, boolean): Enable wake word on the assist pipeline. Defaults to false.

  • on_intent_start (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when intent processing starts.

  • on_intent_end (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when intent processing ends.

  • on_listening (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when the voice assistant microphone starts listening.

  • on_start (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when the assist pipeline is started.

  • on_wake_word_detected (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when the assist pipeline has detected a wake word.

  • on_end (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when the voice assistant is finished all tasks.

  • on_stt_end (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when the voice assistant has finished speech-to-text. The resulting text is available to automations as the variable x.

  • on_stt_vad_start (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when voice activity detection starts speech-to-text processing.

  • on_stt_vad_end (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when voice activity detection ends speech-to-text processing.

  • on_tts_start (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when the voice assistant has started text-to-speech. The text to be spoken is available to automations as the variable x.

  • on_tts_end (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when the voice assistant has finished text-to-speech. A URL containing the audio response is available to automations as the variable x.

  • on_tts_stream_start (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when audio stream (voice response) playback starts. Requires speaker to be configured.

  • on_tts_stream_end (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when audio stream (voice response) playback ends. Requires speaker to be configured.

  • on_idle (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when the voice assistant is idle (no other actions/states are in progress).

  • on_error (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when the voice assistant has encountered an error. The error code and message are available to automations as the variables code and message.

  • on_client_connected (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when Home Assistant has connected and is waiting for Voice Assistant commands.

  • on_client_disconnected (Optional, Automation): An automation to perform when Home Assistant disconnects from the Voice Assistant.

  • noise_suppression_level (Optional, integer): The noise suppression level to apply to the assist pipeline. Between 0 and 4 inclusive. Defaults to 0 (disabled).

  • auto_gain (Optional, dBFS): Auto gain level to apply to the assist pipeline. Between 0dBFS and 31dBFS inclusive. Defaults to 0 (disabled).

  • volume_multiplier (Optional, float): Volume multiplier to apply to the assist pipeline. Must be larger than 0. Defaults to 1 (disabled).

Voice Assistant Actions

The following actions are available for use in automations:

voice_assistant.start

Listens for one voice command then stops.

Configuration variables:

  • silence_detection (Optional, boolean): Enable silence detection. Defaults to true.

  • wake_word (Optional, string): The wake word that was used to trigger the voice assistant when using on-device wake word such as Micro Wake Word.

Call voice_assistant.stop to signal the end of the voice command if silence_detection is set to false.

voice_assistant.start_continuous

Start listening for voice commands. This will start listening again after the response audio has finished playing. Some errors will stop the cycle. Call voice_assistant.stop to stop the cycle.

voice_assistant.stop

Stop listening for voice commands.

Voice Assistant Conditions

The following conditions are available for use in automations:

  • voice_assistant.is_running - Returns true if the voice assistant is currently running.

  • voice_assistant.connected - Returns true if the voice assistant is currently connected to Home Assistant.

Wake word detection

See our example YAML files on GitHub for continuous wake word detection.

Push to Talk

Here is an example offering Push to Talk with a Binary Sensor Component.

voice_assistant:
  microphone: ...
  speaker: ...

binary_sensor:
  - platform: gpio
    pin: ...
    on_press:
      - voice_assistant.start:
          silence_detection: false
    on_release:
      - voice_assistant.stop:

Click to Converse

voice_assistant:
  microphone: ...
  speaker: ...

binary_sensor:
  - platform: gpio
    pin: ...
    on_click:
      - if:
          condition: voice_assistant.is_running
          then:
            - voice_assistant.stop:
          else:
            - voice_assistant.start_continuous:

See Also