I really want a smart-house setup that is locally run. I would love to do the "Computer, do what I want" vocal command thing without submitting myself to constant surveillance.
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I agree with your idea... In fact, I would prefer that my own home A.I. do everything for me... Forget Siri and Alexa. I would need for all of my mobile devices to connect to my "Home Intelligence" when I am out and about.
When you figure out how to do that, please share. I told my in-home desktop support that I want to go back to a desktop brick that needs discs inserted to be anything other than a door stopper. And it needs to have a "click" on/off function (not a software power function that can be hacked).
Apple’s HomeKit (running locally via an Apple TV or HomePod) is probably your best bet for simple setup and (reasonably) private. Not got the biggest range of compatible accessories around though.
Check out Network Chuck’s videos on Home Assistant and AI voice recognition. All of it runs locally. It’s really cool stuff and his editors make it fun. Tell me if you see what him and I have in common… 😉
I use Rhasspy, an open source platform running on a Raspberry Pi. It works with Home Assistant and other platforms. The default wake word is “porcupine” and occasionally has false positives, but otherwise is pretty reliable. You do have to define the vocabulary it understands, but not too complex.
I will say though, after I got over tinkering constantly, which I had to do to set it up the way I wanted, mine has worked flawlessly for over 2 years now. I havent even rememeberd to update for months and its fine.
you can just run it in a docker container on any normal PC too, if you dont have a dedicated machine.
Only downside is gotta keep my PC on 24/7, and Im bad at coding automations so a memory leak means my computer needs a restart every 3 days or so or it slows down. really NBD i should do it anyway
I have yet to dive in because I live in an apartment and am scared about changing hardware but home assistant running on a raspberry pi has been on my ‘to do someday’ list for a while now.
I really like "Home Assistant". Open source, small (I run it on a Raspberry Pi 5 with an SSD). Lots of product integrations, scripting, big community support, etc. Free, of course.
You can do that with HomeAssistant but you need to be pretty tech savvy. Im not a coder at all, and basically know python now because I went in full force. But its very easy to find documentation on anything you want to do and you can do it if you apply yourself.
It isn't the constant surveillance for me. It is the damn thing no doing what I tell it to do or the servers being down and have to turn on everything by hand, like I was a cave man
I put in an application for a room on the Enterprise. It hasn't come in yet, but I have hope. The first thing I'm going to tell the computer to do is make my bed 💜🤓
Have a look at Home Assistant. Can be made to work with almost anything, and as local as you like! https://www.home-assistant.io/ Can run very nicely from a raspberry pi
^ exactly this. It works with a wide range of devices (do some research before purchasing equipment), and it's so satisfying getting the different automations to run.
Everyone saying “oh that’s easy raspberry pi blah blah”. Well sure. But it is a bit harder if you’re trying to use commercial operating systems (maybe because you have to for some reason??).
Why do you *have* to? You can download a whole HA installation *with* the OS, write it to an SD card, and you're good to go. I think there may be ways to run HA in a virtual machine under Windoze too.
I ran Home Assistant OS under Hyper-V on a Windows machine for several months, and it worked perfectly. I eventually moved it to a Linux machine under KVM, but only because that was my plan all along, not for any other reason.
If you want a simple to use but also a really powerful solution, I would recommend Homey. Works with everything (ZigBee, Z-wave, Wifi, Matter, Threads) and you can use Siri for voice commands.
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You can download it and train it locally. I doubt I can figure it out, but maybe you can.
I'm sticking with my dumb house...
https://odysee.com/@RobBraxmanTech:6/Lllm-How-It-Works-x:f
HomeKit if you want to build it yourself.
It is for the tinkerers though.
It honestly wasn't that difficult to set up.
Only downside is gotta keep my PC on 24/7, and Im bad at coding automations so a memory leak means my computer needs a restart every 3 days or so or it slows down. really NBD i should do it anyway
Anyway. Yes. I’d love this too.
But it still might not be able to turn the sound down or start an app. Windows is terrible at that stuff.
Sudo is coming to windows but that still requires a human to press a button in a silly dialog box.
I meant when I am using windows I want to be able to say “hey computer, turn the volume down” or “hey computer, move that window to my other monitor”.
Windows makes this harder than it should be. Presumably deliberately. Not unsolvable. But not just … easy.
Me: Computer! Play some music.
Computer: 🙂 🔉 🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶
Me: Computer! Turn down the volume.
Computer: 🙉 🔊 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵
Me: Computer! Turn it DOWN!
Computer: 🤷♂️ 🙉 😄 🔊🔊🔊🎸🎷🥁🥁🥁
Me: COMPUTER!! 🤬🤬🤬📴💥
But AI is changing the world don’t you know.
:eyeroll
Me: Computer! Turn down the volume!
Computer: I'm sorry, Dave...