home-assistant-voice-custom-responses

Introduction

Ever since the new official Home Assistant Voice satellite was launched to be used with Home Assistant, I wanted to try to make the conversation as natural as possible through this satellite.. Through this project, custom random responses can be added to the Home Assistant Voice PE satellite instead of the wake sound.

Here's a video tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bBOoUhnF4A&t=166s

Features

• wake word, push to talk, on-demand and continuous conversation support

• service exposed in HA to start and stop the voice assistant from another device/trigger

• visual feedback of the wake word listening/audio recording/success/error status via the satellite LEDs

• changing assistants and language from the graphical interface or with voice commands.

  Pre-requisites

• Home Assistant 2024.12.0 or newer

• A voice assistant configured in HA with STT and TTS in a language of your choice

• ESPHome 2024.12.2 or newer

  Instructions

• Pair the Home Assistant Voice satellite with Home Assistant via Improv BLE using the Home Assistant application on your mobile phone with bluetooth enabled and add it to the EspHome integration.

• In the EspHome integration from the Settings/Devices&services tab, press the CONFIGURE button on the paired satellite and check the box Allow the device to perform Home Assistant actions.

• Open the ESPHome Builder tab from the Home Assistant's main menu and check Show discovered devices from three dots menu on the top right and click on the button Take control of the discovered satellite.

• Click on the EDIT button of the satellite to enter the editing window.

• Copy the official code of the Home Assistant Voice satellite from github and paste in the satellite editing window of EspHome builder.

• Comment the two lines for packages in the satellite code.

• Cut&paste the lines with substitutions in the similar column in the new code

substitutions:
 name: home-assistant-voice-0903d5
 friendly_name: Home Assistant Voice 0903d5

• Cut&paste the lines with the satellite name in EspHome in the similar column in the new code

esphome:
  name: ${name}
  name_add_mac_suffix: false
  friendly_name: ${friendly_name} 

• Cut&paste the lines with api encription key in the similar column in the new code

api:
  encryption:
    key: kk8WVxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxvo0IKco=

• Cut&paste the lines with wifi setup in the similar column in the new code

wifi:
  ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  password: !secret wifi_password 

• Add these lines of code to the switch section of the satellite code

  - platform: template
    id: custom_responses_switch
    icon: "mdi:microphone-message"
    name: Custom responses
    entity_category: config
    optimistic: true
    restore_mode: RESTORE_DEFAULT_ON

• Add these lines of code to the binary_sensor section of the satellite code

  - platform: template
    name: "Wake Word Detect"
    id: wake_word_sensor

• Add these lines of code to the script section of the satellite code

  - id: activate_wake_word_sensor
    then:
      - binary_sensor.template.publish:
          id: wake_word_sensor
          state: ON
      - delay: 1s
      - binary_sensor.template.publish:
          id: wake_word_sensor
          state: OFF

• Add these lines of code ON TOP of the on_wake_word_detection from micro_wake_word section of the satellite code

    - if:
        condition:
          switch.is_on: custom_responses_switch
        then:
          - script.execute: activate_wake_word_sensor
          - script.execute: control_leds_voice_assistant_waiting_for_command_phase
          - delay: 1s
          - wait_until:
              condition:
                lambda: return id(external_media_player)->state == media_player::MediaPlayerState::MEDIA_PLAYER_STATE_IDLE;
              timeout: 2s

• Click on SAVE then on INSTALL and then on Wiressly in the upper right corner of the editing window.
• If you want, you have the complete code based on the Firmware: 2025.3.2 here
• In Home Assistant go to Settings/Automations&scenes and click on the blue button at the bottom right CREATE AUTOMATION and Create new automation
• Click on ADD TRIGGER then on Entity/State and on Entity field search Home Assistant voice Wake Word Detect binary_sensor and select it, and then select To On.
• Then under ADD ACTION look for Media player and then click on Play media
• Select the desired satellite as media player, then click on Pick media and from Text-to-speech select the text to speech service, the desired language and the desired message (Ex. How can I help you).
• Then click on the blue button at the bottom right SAVE and put a name to the automation (Ex. Ha voice custom responses)
• If you want random responses, from the tree dots menu on the top right, select Edit in YAML and at media_content_id, replace the part with the message (ex: how+can+i+help+you) with random messages according to this model

{{ ['how can I help you', 'yes, i`m  listening', 'how can assist you'] | random }}

• This is the automation that you can use just by changing the names of the binary_sensor and the media_player

alias: Ha voice custom responses
description: ""
triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id:
      - binary_sensor.home_assistant_voice_0903d5_wake_word_detect
    to: "on"
conditions: []
actions:
  - action: media_player.play_media
    target:
      entity_id: media_player.home_assistant_voice_0903d5_media_player
    data:
      media_content_id: >-
        media-source://tts/edge_tts?message={{ ['how can I help you', 'yes, i`m
        listening', 'how can assist you'] | random
        }}&language=en-US-ChristopherNeural
      media_content_type: provider
      announce: true
mode: single

• If you want more assistants or more languages, you can use this automation

alias: Ha voice custom responses
description: ""
triggers:
  - trigger: state
    entity_id:
      - binary_sensor.home_assistant_voice_0903d5_wake_word_detect
    to: "on"
conditions: []
actions:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: state
            entity_id: select.home_assistant_voice_0903d5_pipeline_assist
            state: Home Assistant en
        sequence:
          - action: media_player.play_media
            target:
              entity_id: media_player.home_assistant_voice_0903d5_media_player
            data:
              media_content_id: >-
                media-source://tts/edge_tts?message={{ ['how can I help you',
                'yes, i`m
                    listening', 'how can assist you'] | random
                    }}&language=en-US-ChristopherNeural
              media_content_type: provider
              announce: true
      - conditions:
          - condition: state
            entity_id: select.home_assistant_voice_0903d5_pipeline_assist
            state: Home Assistant ro
        sequence:
          - action: media_player.play_media
            target:
              entity_id: media_player.home_assistant_voice_0903d5_media_player
            data:
              media_content_id: >-
                media-source://tts/edge_tts?message={{ ['spune te rog', 'cu ce
                pot să te ajut', 'cum pot să te assist'] | random }}&language=ro-RO-EmilNeural
              media_content_type: provider
              announce: true
mode: single

• If you want to change the assistant or language with voice commands, you can use this automation

alias: Ha voice change assistants
description: ""
triggers:
  - trigger: conversation
    command:
      - Vreau să vorbesc în engleză
    id: english
  - trigger: conversation
    command: I want to speak in romanian
    id: romanian
conditions: []
actions:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id:
              - english
        sequence:
          - action: select.select_option
            metadata: {}
            data:
              option: Home Assistant en
            target:
              entity_id: select.home_assistant_voice_0903d5_pipeline_assist
      - conditions:
          - condition: trigger
            id:
              - romanian
        sequence:
          - action: select.select_option
            metadata: {}
            data:
              option: Home Assistant ro
            target:
              entity_id: select.home_assistant_voice_0903d5_pipeline_assist
mode: single