Home Assistant’s Voice Preview Edition is a little box with big privacy powers

Home Assistant announced today the availability of the Voice Preview Edition, its own design of a living-room-friendly box to offer voice assistance with home automation. Having used it for a few weeks, it seems like a great start, at least for those comfortable with digging into the settings. That's why Home Assistant is calling it a "Preview Edition."

Using its private Nabu Casa cloud—or your own capable computer—to handle the processing, the Voice Preview Edition (VPE) ($60/60 euros, available today) has the rough footprint of a modern Apple TV but is thinner. It works similarly to an Amazon Echo, Google Assistant, or Apple Siri device, but with a more focused goal. Start with a wake word—the default, and most well-trained version, is "Okay, Nabu," but "Hey, Jarvis" and "Hey, Mycroft" are available. Follow that with a command, typically something that targets a smart home device ...