How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb voice assistant - Ars Technica

Enlarge / We don't person to trust connected megacorp obelisks to run the things we buy. We don't person to larn their language. We tin interruption free.

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For galore people, an automated astute location is astir small things that adhd up to large conveniences implicit time. Lights turning connected erstwhile you propulsion into the driveway, a downstairs thermostat adjustable from your upstairs bedroom, a robot vacuum moving portion you're astatine the market store—you enactment successful a spot of setup enactment and your beingness gets easier.

What astir astute homes besides include, however, is simply a dependable assistant, the other of a quiet, unseen convenience. Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant: They request that you larn circumstantial instrumentality names and structures for commands, portion they often get adjacent the astir elemental bid astoundingly wrong. And they are, of course, an always-listening firm microphone you're allowing wrong your home.

There are ways to support that astute location convenience portion cutting retired the conversation. Some impact your phone, immoderate dedicated devices, but nary of them impact saying a device's name. Here's an overview of the champion options available.

DIY controllers

Enlarge / A information of my Home Assistant panel, arsenic seen from a browser.

Kevin Purdy

Home Assistant

Home Assistant is simply a self-hosted webpage that lets you power astir immoderate instrumentality with switches and dials. It's a batch much than that, but it doesn't person to look similar it. Home Assistant is much enactment to acceptable up than the large tech companies' location power apps, but it is infinitely configurable. You determine which controls to amusement and not amusement (and successful what order) and acceptable up automations that don't necessitate installing each device's clunky app connected your phone. With circumstantial devices, you tin besides take to negociate everything locally, disconnected from the cloud.

Most enthusiasts tally Home Assistant from a Raspberry Pi. Given the device's existent scarcity, it's bully that Home Assistant tin besides tally connected other hardware. Home Assistant besides makes a dedicated Pi-based box, Home Assistant Yellow, though it's perpetually connected a several-month backorder.

Once Home Assistant is installed and connected to your devices, you'll person entree to your cogwheel done phones, tablets, computers, oregon a mounted display. You'll besides person casual ways of getting to it from your Android and iOS phone—more connected that successful a bit.

Enlarge / Hubitat, with a java mug and pome for scale.

Hubitat and HomeSeer

If Home Assistant doesn't entreaty to you oregon you similar to person a chiseled portion of hardware to negociate your astute home, Hubitat and HomeSeer are notable alternatives. Both thin to absorption their enactment connected devices that pass implicit Zigbee and Z-Wave vigor protocols. And lately, Home Assistant has had much progressive assemblage development. But some projects connection the aforesaid benignant of local-web-based power of each your devices, with possibly adjacent much robust local-only control.