this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 156 points 9 months ago (31 children)

The problem I have always had with voice control is that it just doesn't really seem to fit into my home automation. I don't want to give Home Assistant a verbal command to turn on the lights. I want it to detect that I've entered the room and set the lights to the appropriate scene automatically; I haven't touched a light switch in weeks. For selecting an album or movie to play, it's easier to use a menu on a screen than to try to explain it verbally.

Don't get me wrong. I'm hugely in favor of anything that runs locally instead of using the "cloud." I think that the majority of people running a home automation server want to tinker with it and streamline it to do things on its own. I want it to "read my mind." The people who just want a basic solution probably aren't going to set up HA.

Maybe I'm missing a use case for voice control?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

My main use case for voice is for things that I haven't been able to (reasonably) automate. For a couple of examples:

  1. Saying "turn on the TV" as I'm grabbing lunch and walking across the room
  2. "Turn on/off the stars" for bedroom mood lighting
  3. "Timer for x" is honestly probably the most used things.

It's all fairly trivial stuff to do manually but I think that's probably true for the vast majority of home automation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Try "start Netflix on the TV". Should work for most services. (At least it does with Chromecast and Home Assistant).

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