Home Assistant has thrilled users with the launch of Voice chapter 9, a new development that follows the introduction of the Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition hardware last December, and the Home Assistant 2025.2 release in early February. This rollout is designed to make a local voice assistant more accessible to a broader audience.
In the previous chapter, the company encouraged users to adopt the Whisper Speech-to-Text tool, which required a Raspberry Pi 4 for execution. This setup often took about five seconds to transcribe speech and delivered mixed outcomes, prompting a recommendation for employing an Intel N100. The new update suggests using the advanced Speech-to-Phrase tool, available initially to English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, and Italian speakers.
The Speech-to-Phrase tool significantly reduces the time taken for speech recognition, achieving conversion to text in less than a second on a Raspberry Pi 4 or Home Assistant Green. With a Raspberry Pi 5, the process becomes even faster, taking just 150 milliseconds. Although Speech-to-Phrase has a more limited range of out-of-the-box voice commands, it efficiently supports tasks like controlling smart lights, managing media players, setting timers, and checking weather forecasts.
Voice chapter 9 also introduces exciting features as detailed in the 2025.2 release notes. Users can now enjoy the ability to broadcast messages across different connected devices, set smart thermostat temperatures using voice commands, and even make phone calls to leave notifications, such as alerts when the washing cycle finishes.
These enhancements aim to deliver a smarter, more integrated home automation experience, catering to the evolving needs of smart home enthusiasts worldwide. For those interested in the finer details, the Home Assistant blog provides comprehensive release notes for Voice chapter 9.
