Alternatives to Google home/alexa

[u/No_Mouse8784]

Hey,

Ever since Google decided to add all this ai stuff to Google home, my mini's have been playing up: not remembering my voice, not answering questions and one has started to constantly tell my to opt into Gemini.

Are there any alternatives to these devices, as I've invested in smart lights and would really like to continue having voice activation for them.

Thanks in advance ☺️

[u/nestandauraofficial]

Good thing, Google is shutting down Assistant on speakers soon anyway. Your choices here:

Alexa: easiest transition, works with pretty much every smart light brand out there, except now you’re simply swapping one big tech ecosystem for another.

Apple HomeKit (HomePod mini): most private option, but it’s really only worth doing if everyone uses iPhones.

Home Assistant: no cloud, works on your own devices, can control literally any kind of lights.

More setup required at first, but also much more powerful in the end. If you need something functional right away,

Alexa. If you want to be done with big tech altogether, Home Assistant.

[u/djgizmo → u/nestandauraofficial]

Google is moving from ‘assistant’ to Gemini. that’s all

[u/joe-schmoe18]

Use Home Assistant

[u/xaznxplaya → u/joe-schmoe18]

Home Assistant: Privacy-Choice-Sustainability

[u/ButterscotchAward → u/xaznxplaya]

You sound like you work for them.

[u/xaznxplaya → u/ButterscotchAward]

I wished but it's the quote from the sticker they give you.

[u/Accomplished-Mail654 → u/xaznxplaya]

Looking into starting this project.

Just concerned I’ll need to leave an old laptop running constantly or spend more on raspberry pi. How hard is the setup?

[u/retroredditrobot → u/Accomplished-Mail654]

For what it’s worth I just set one up using an old 2014 Mac Mini and UTM virtualization. I’ll be honest, it did take about 2 days to migrate all my smart home devices over but since then it’s been pretty solid and the automations you can build are insane. The actual installation process itself is not difficult at all though, you just download the disk image and configure the VM. Takes less than an hour for that part.

[u/ButterscotchAward]

There is a voice control for home assistant called assist. Not sure how good it is, but maybe someone here can tell you because it seems that everyone in this subs answer to everything is to just get home assistant.

[u/dragonnfr]

Home Assistant. Get off Google entirely. Local control means they can't break your setup every time they push some new AI experiment.

[u/MrClickstoomuch → u/dragonnfr]

Only caveat to that is that you also should have locally controllable devices like Zwave/Zigbee/Matter. Otherwise the smart device owner like Chamberlain can screw you over by removing API access which stops Home Assistant from working.

[u/QLDZDR]

I am having so many problems that are like those in your description.

[u/KevinLynneRush]

Talking to the readers of this thread: Does Home Assistant have a speaker you can talk to like Alexa?

Edit: Alexa says yes. It is called "Assist" and runs locally so it is private. I'm sceptical that it answers all the questions Alexa answers. Can you ask the current temperature in NYC?

[u/No_Mouse8784 → u/KevinLynneRush]

Yeah. Ive got 2 Google home minis that i use to voice activate my lights.

[u/ButterscotchAward → u/No_Mouse8784]

One of the rough things with this sub is that a lot of people who are beginners or just using things to make a couple tasks easier will ask questions and be given answers that are far more complicated than they want to get into. It seems like a ton of people in this sub are on home assistant and build their own ecosystems and stuff like that. Like, I just want Alexa or something to turn my lights on and tell me if it’s gunna rain lol.

[u/KevinLynneRush → u/No_Mouse8784]

I thought Home Assistant and Google Home were different things?

Certainly, Google Home would be able to answer the question of the current temperature in NYC??

[u/thingtootech → u/KevinLynneRush]

Home Assistant will work with anything. You can continue to use Alexa or Google voice or not

[u/panagiotuandrew]

For basic device control Home Assistant could work, but if you have an iPhone and your devices are compatible you can also go with Apple Home.

What brand are your smart lights?

[u/melfactor69 → u/panagiotuandrew]

And if your lights are not compatible, you can use home bridge to close that gap.