HS Voice control without Alexa/Google??

[jedibob]

Hello!

I am looking to upgrade from smartthings to a more advanced control system and HS definitely seems to offer a lot of advantages.
I'm having trouble though finding much of anything on voice control/commands without alexa/google.
(Not trying to start a debate on pros/cons of alexa! Just not something I'd like)

Is this possible? Seems it was a hot topic 5 or 6 years ago.
In my mind I envisioned ipad or android devices around the house running hstouch interfaces providing any room voice control.

Thanks for any help!

[freeon]

It is possible with apple devices via this https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-homeseer4. It's not a simple plugin and there is a bit of work to set it up but it works. I have the previous version installed and been working great for a long time. I have an apple watch which makes this even better. I have voice control anywhere I go.

[mulu]

Why do you not want to use Alexa/Google? Is it because you don't want to buy the devices? If so then get a Fire Tablet. They have Alexa built in and you can do the voice control right through that tablet. I am not sure how well the tablet based Alex works from a distance, though.

[mik3]

Hello!

I am looking to upgrade from smartthings to a more advanced control system and HS definitely seems to offer a lot of advantages.
I'm having trouble though finding much of anything on voice control/commands without alexa/google.
(Not trying to start a debate on pros/cons of alexa! Just not something I'd like)

Is this possible? Seems it was a hot topic 5 or 6 years ago.
In my mind I envisioned ipad or android devices around the house running hstouch interfaces providing any room voice control.

Thanks for any help!

All TTS devices mention work.

for Apple you need to setup homebridge.

[Mahera]

I think that jedibob is looking for a local solution.
One that doesn’t require to open up your whole installation to some server somewhere just to turn a light on.
i did. read part of the document about homebridge from the link in an earlier post and i stopped reading once I reached the part that stated “input your username and password”

how would someone be able to get voice working without the need for those “data collectors” named “cloud service”

i will never understand why someone would like to have someone listen to what ever happens in the house.

[mulu]

Mahera That's a valid concern. In my case I have an Alexa device in every room so I can control things via voice from everywhere. I can also use it to set timers, reminders, ask it to do conversions, etc, etc. As far as I know, nobody has a device that can handle this locally. I am willing to give up some privacy in return for A LOT of convenience. This comes from somebody who tries to be as independent of the internet as possible, which is one important reason I chose HS (besides no monthly fees and HSTouch which HS is neglecting, unfortunately).

[Hsuser]

Mycroft... Mycroft is a self hosted voice assistant that runs locally on raspberry pi’s. The only issue is the homeseer plugin for it hasn’t been updated in a while and doesn’t seem to work anymore.

[randman]

I use Alexa and Siri (with Homebridge-HomeSeer4 plugin). In the years that I've used them, I've found the Sir/Homebridge approach to be much more reliable than Alexa, but it does take a little more upfront work to setup, and while HomePods are very nice devices, they are more expensive and for some rooms, you may not care about the quality of the speaker so much, and it's just cheaper to get Alexa. IMO, Apple is probably more security conscious than Amazon and Google, if that helps.

Anyway, yes, there's always security concerns, but voice control is so convenient that I can't imagine not having it. Before voice control, I had been using HomeSeer for many years, but noone in my family cared about home automation. Noone wanted to go through the trouble of pulling out their phones, starting an app, and navigating the app just to turn on or off lights. They would just prefer to walk to the wall switch. While wall-mounted touch screens may look fancy, I personally don't think I would use it much, since it's not any more convenient than getting up to turn on or off the lights (and not any easier than just using my phone, which I have with me all the time). With voice control, home automation is used and appreciated much more by everyone at home. Very high WAF. Funny, when we travel, and in a hotel, family members keep saying they wish they can just turn on or off lights via voice control.

[JSC]

I use Autovoice and Tasker on Android (phone and tablets) and Siri shortcuts on Apple devices to send http commands to Homeseer directly over the local network.
Depending on your requirements you can either:

(1) send Homeseer ‘voice’ commands via a http json request
(2) send any text commands by setting the string of a virtual device using json and then use script to process the string
(3) send a text command to a server aspx page which processes the command using script

The routine in Tasker is quite simple but some knowledge of Tasker will be required.

Method (1) requires no scripting but your voice command will need to follow the format specified by Homeseer.
Methods (2) and (3) require knowledge of scripting but offer the most flexibility as you have total control of the incoming command to do whatever you want.

[sirbooker]

Voxcommando is an awesome Locally Hosted Voice Program which is very Powerful.....
the only thing is HomeSeer needs a Plugin Developed for use with it
Developers need to look at this

[ksum]

Has anyone used the internal HomeSeer voice capabilities lately? I looked into it long ago but decided against it as i didn't want to set up microphones. I believe the biggest issue is that you need to use specific phrases.

[mik3]

Has anyone used the internal HomeSeer voice capabilities lately? I looked into it long ago but decided against it as i didn't want to set up microphones. I believe the biggest issue is that you need to use specific phrases.

I had it running for testing.

just load the speaker client up and test.

[Mahera]

The thing I wonder is why is the local voice recognition so much behind? I mean as long as I can remember we had voice recognition for dictating texts. That worked surprisingly good already a few years ago.
i will check those programs mentioned here by Hsuser and sirbooker. Thank you all for the suggestions.

i did use for testing the iPhone shortcuts and they did work after I set them up. You “just” have to setup a shortcut for every task you would like todo.
A ton of work.

for the lights in the house I use minimodes. They work well for a few years now. Charge holds a long time.
The rest is automated so no wall switching is needed.
no dimming though.

[JamesWestoby]

Not necessarily a direct help but I wrote a HS3 plugin to take VR type phrases over TCP/IP and then work out what device event you were after - it is HSPI_ActionRequest.

I'm currently in the process of updating (and streamlining, bit clunky in places) it for HS4.

Additionally I wrote an Android app (HomeSeerRemote - THAT sunk like a lead balloon) - that just sends TCP/IP XML fragments, that you could type in or use Google speech for. But the plugin is fairly agnostic and I also use a (bought) Android app called 'Anymote Remote' by Color Tiger which can send text over local TCP/IP.

Bit like, but predates, HomeSeers native JSON but simpler, an example would be "<Request VR=Family Room Lights On>" but almost anything with (in this instance) Family, Lights and On would work - it does word spotting for devices and operations.

None of these actually cost anything and were/are freely available. In fact I need the plugin so that MediaPortal can talk to HomeSeer and HomeSeer can control Mediaportal!
(I use HomeSeer to tell my [MediaPortal client] radio to come on weekday mornings.)

Hence the updating requirement.

I will confess I also use Google Homes - just varies as to what I feel like using....

[wpiman]

For Siri, I recommend using Apple Shortcuts and the Homeseer JSON commands. You can bypass the whole Homebridge and just use JSON voice command.