Voice Assistant sets volume instead of turning outlet on/off | Home Assistant | Page 1

stray sun Nov 3, 2025, 8:04 PM

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Setting up HA for the first time, installed as a promox VM using the image, adding z-wave and 2 outlets was easy, I can toggle the outlets in the overview, works fine. I added a HA Voice PE, that seemed to go smoothly and have it set to full local processing (the VM is on a i5 with 6 cores and 12GB RAM allocated)

I can say "hey jarvis, what time is it?" and it responds with the time. "hey jarvis, what day is it?" responds with the date. But when I say "hey jarvis, turn on socket 1" it responds with "volume set" and the volume is very low. I can say "hey jarvis set volume to 50%" and it is louder again. But any attempt to turn something on/off always results in "volume set" and it's low again.

I've tried changing the name of the outlet devices to a variety of things, but it always sets volume low instead of turning the requested device on/off. Looking at the debug it shows that it hears me correctly, the command I gave is clearly correct in the debug, but the response is to change the volume instead. If I use a name that doesn't exist, it correctly responds that it doesn't know a device with that name. So I'm lost as to why it's hearing the correct command but doing something else entirely, am I missing something simple? It hears that I've asked to "turn off socket 1" so why is it not doing what I asked?

The full debug is pasted at https://justpaste.it/bygcy

chrome lily Nov 3, 2025, 8:59 PM

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Could you try typing 'Turn on socket one' in the assist menu within the HA webui? You can press 'a' on your keyboard to bring it up.

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I'm curious to see if this is the STT putting a '1' there causing issue.

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Also, your paste is weird. Most people, including me won't click it.

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Use https://pastebin.com if you can

Pastebin

Pastebin.com - #1 paste tool since 2002!

Pastebin.com is the number one paste tool since 2002. Pastebin is a website where you can store text online for a set period of time.

stray sun Nov 3, 2025, 10:51 PM

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Thanks for the advice, I'll look for somewhere else to paste, first time using that one.

I wasn't aware of the assist text input, it does the same thing there.

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I've literally just install HA a few hours ago, plugged in the zwave and added the two outlets, checked that toggling them works fine, then added the voice assistant and it seems to be working fine as well until I discovered this. It doesn't seem to be the voice itself since typing the command has the same result.

I haven't gotten to anything else yet. The STT does the same command. I've tried naming the outlets as "outlet" and "switch" and "socket" but haven't tried just using a name without a number 1 or 2. Does having a number in the name cause issues? About to test that...

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well... interesting. Naming the outlet "switch a" works. Good to know. It didn't occur to me that numbering a device in the name would confuse it. Thanks a lot for helping!

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Not sure what I'm doing wrong though. It seems somewhat tempermental about names, renaming one outlet worked fine but I've tried multiple renames for the other one and it can't find it

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ok, got it. I had added an alias to that one for testing and forgot. I cleared that and made sure it's exposed and it works now. I'm learning. 🙂

chrome lily Nov 4, 2025, 2:41 AM

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stray sun Not sure what I'm doing wrong though. It seems somewhat tempermental about names...

This is why some of us Use LLMs, it allows for more flexible phrases to trigger actions.

But that's another level of commitment 😛

stray sun Nov 4, 2025, 3:10 PM

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I haven't gotten that far yet 🙂 Are there any HA friendly LLMs that can run reasonably on an i5 without a GPU? (or can use the i5 integrated quicksync GPU)

chrome lily Nov 4, 2025, 3:28 PM

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stray sun I haven't gotten that far yet 🙂 Are there any HA friendly LLMs that can run rea...

Unfortunately not that I know. An Nvidia GPU is required for speedy inference.

The best bang for the buck is a used 3090 according to many on the LLM forums

But a 4060 would be more than enough, while as fast but with less VRAM, allowing for only smaller models.

I personally run Qwen 3 4b, which should fit on a 4060 or something akin.

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It even became a meme on /r/localllama

jaunty willow Nov 4, 2025, 3:30 PM

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you might consider nabu casa cloud sub. Voice is fast and good, you get online encrypted backups and external access, besides sponsoring Home Assistant. 😉

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1 month for free, try

chrome lily Nov 4, 2025, 3:31 PM

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jaunty willow you might consider nabu casa cloud sub. Voice is fast and good, you get online e...

This is the 'Speech-to-Phrase' thingy?

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When you say 'Voice is fast and good'

jaunty willow Nov 4, 2025, 3:33 PM

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conversion agent, sst tts. conversation agent i set to google ai conversation. answers within a second, or two 🙂

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just seeing i toggled off local processing, lol

stray sun Nov 4, 2025, 4:05 PM

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I have a node with an old 1080ti but am struggling to not add watts to my cluster. My main goal is to replace google home and gain local control without internet. I'm just starting the learning curve for HA to find where it fits for me. I'm leaning toward full local control for devices and some free cloud LLM for anything else (weather, shopping list, maths and unit conversions etc.)

chrome lily Nov 4, 2025, 4:07 PM

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My main goal is to replace google home and gain local control without internet.

That's what I did.

I had 16 google nest minis previously

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I am now running 8 local assistant endpoints.

2 Ha VPE, and 6 ESP-32-s3 boxes

#Voice Assistant sets volume instead of turning outlet on/off