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The original was posted on /r/homeassistant by /u/aaaaaaaazzzzzzzzz on 2025-05-05 09:20:55+00:00.
I wanted to give me experiences so far of Voice PE. Also hoping to see if I'm doing anything wrong of missing anything.
I just don't see how people are able to use this as a replacement for something like Alexa. My biggest issues are:
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Inability to simply say one single sentence. I have to say the Wake word, then wait, then start speaking. In Alexa, I can just say "Alexa what temperature is it?". Can't do that in Voice PE - which is a big issue in my opinion.
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Trust that it will hear the wake word. Alexa will hear all of us 95% of the time. Voice PE is about 50% and only if the room is quiet.
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Getting it to play music through my sonos speaker is near enough impossible. I am using Music Assistant. With Alexa, I can just say "Alexa, Play Coldplay". Trying to get that to work in Voice PE just doesn't work.
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When playing music on my Sonos, which is next to the Voice PE, the wake word will never get heard as it doesn't lower the volume of the music when it detects someone talking to it, like Alexa will.
I have it hooked up to ChatGPT, which is waaaaay better for some things, but it's slow. I will consider running a local LLM, but am struggling to justify the cost of doing it properly to be able to compete with ChatGPT.
As it stands, there is simply no way I can replace Alexa. This is mainly due to other members of the house (wife and kids) simply can't use Voice PE.
Anyone have any tips?