# Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition

14 Hacker News commenters recommended Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition and 8 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended as an open-source local voice assistant with a near Alexa or Google Home feel. Critics agree its microphone and speaker fall short of Echo and Google Home devices.

## Why people recommend it

- Works well, nice little devices (3 comments): "I've have great success with Home Assistant and the Home Assistant Voice Preview edition" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46520857)) "buy their off the shelf voice hardware, which works really well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46742020)) "They're very nice little devices." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47500117))
- Alexa-like experience with easy setup (2 comments): "was able to get an Alexa/Google Home-like experience going with minimal effort" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46630028)) "potentially easy to setup yet relatively open" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47717878))
- Open-source and runs locally (2 comments): "You might be interested in the open-source https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47660196)) "All local and fairly energy-reasonable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930629))

## What people warn about

- Weak microphone and wake word pickup (5 comments): "HA Voice (the current hardware) does not do well enough in the mic or speaker department when compared to the Echos." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527522)) "where it did perform a lot worse with the multiple bits of white noise and odd room shape" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46535808)) "Somehow nothing is even 50% good as my Echo devices at picking up the wake word" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47399332))
- Speaker weaker than Echo or Google (4 comments): "HA Voice (the current hardware) does not do well enough in the mic or speaker department when compared to the Echos." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527522)) "It's surprisingly good, but still falls short when compared to Google Home speakers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47404426)) "the audio performance is miserable on the preview device" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46528224))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Amazon Alexa](https://hackerapproved.com/p/amazon-alexa.md): 45 recommend
- [Apple HomePod](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-homepod.md): 30 recommend
- [Google Home](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-home.md): 19 recommend
- [Meta Portal](https://hackerapproved.com/p/meta-portal.md): 17 recommend
- [Amazon Echo Show](https://hackerapproved.com/p/amazon-echo-show.md): 7 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Home+Assistant+Voice+Preview+Edition+voice+assistant+speaker&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Official site](https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition", https://hackerapproved.com/p/home-assistant-voice-preview-edition/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).