4d ago

Can I run STT and TTS on a different computer?

Hey there!

I just ordered the Voice PE to play around with, and I was wondering if it's possible to run the processing of Speech on a different device. I have a HA Green that runs my instance and I'm guessing the processing power is a bit low. However, I also have a small homelab server running that has a lot more power (Ryzen 5 2600) and it would be great if I could just forward all the speech processing to that server.

If it's possible, is there a guide for it out there? Didn't really find something unfortunately...

Thanks a lot!

4 comments

To answer your question, yes.
However, I’ve found that unless you’re going to host your own AI engine with a GPU, you’re stuck with OpenAI or Google Gemini. Luckily I’ve been able to use both with just the free tier.
Whisper and Piper run locally although Piper is a little slow on the green for my tastes. 4 second responses work, but are also frustrating when you’re not sure if it heard you or not. You’re also stuck with just the built in intents (phrases) so you need to be specific in how you say stuff.
Ultimately I set up a cloud based and a local based voice workflow and then I setup a ping probe to a IPs. If I detect the internet is up, it uses the cloud workflow. If the internet is down, it swaps to local to keep the house voice controlled.
- Thank you! Honestly, all I'm trying to do is have it play some music in rooms, control lights and create timers during cooking. I was hoping whisper would be enough for that and I can get the 4s response time down with running it on a ryzen chip than the green.

Sure, HA talks to its voice integrations using the Wyoming Protocol, see here for a list of available services: https://github.com/rhasspy/wyoming
You can, for example, follow the link to piper, run the docker container on your home server and then add a new "Wyoming Protocol" device in HA (you will be asked for IP/Port). You can then select your new STT service in the settings for Voice Assistant.

You can split it in a variety of ways, but I think the Green will be fine if you're using Whisper and Piper.
If you want to run something with an OpenAI compatible API on another machine, that will work as well, and I believe they are expanding other API interfaces. Basically, if you have something capable of responding in the way HA wants for it's intents, you can do that. Your network roundtrip may not make it faster to respond though.
https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/