# How to Use Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition: Local Voice, LLMs, and the MCP Server > How to use Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition: on-device wake words, local or cloud speech, adding ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, and letting AI agents in with Home Assistant's MCP server. - Canonical URL: https://webofmike.com/ai-life/assistants/smart-speakers/how-to-use-home-assistant-voice-preview-edition/ - Author: Mike Moore (https://webofmike.com/about/) - Published: 2026-11-04 - Last modified: 2026-11-04 - Tags: AI Life, How-to - Cite as: Mike Moore, "How to Use Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition: Local Voice, LLMs, and the MCP Server", Web of Mike (webofmike.com), 2026-11-04. https://webofmike.com/ai-life/assistants/smart-speakers/how-to-use-home-assistant-voice-preview-edition/ [AI Life](/ai-life/) / [Assistants](/ai-life/assistants/) / [Smart Speakers](/ai-life/assistants/smart-speakers/) / [Guides](/ai-life/guides/) Read the full review first if you are still deciding: [Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition Review](/ai-life/assistants/smart-speakers/home-assistant-voice-preview-edition-review/). ## Getting started 1. You need a running Home Assistant first. Plug in the Voice Preview Edition and Home Assistant finds it. 2. Pick a wake word: "Okay Nabu," "Hey Jarvis" or "Hey Mycroft." Detection runs on the device with microWakeWord ([Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition](https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/)). 3. Pick speech processing. Home Assistant Cloud is the easy path. Fully local is possible ([Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition](https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/)). 4. Expose only the devices you want voice to control, in Home Assistant's Assist settings. ## How the AI works - **Wake word:** on the device. Nothing goes anywhere until it hears the wake word ([Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition](https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/)). - **Speech to text, local:** Speech-to-Phrase handles fixed home-control phrases on modest hardware. Local Whisper for open-ended speech needs at least an Intel N100 class machine ([Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition](https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/)). - **Speech to text, cloud:** Home Assistant Cloud uses Microsoft Azure speech, and Nabu Casa says it keeps no record of your voice ([Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition](https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/)). - **The brain:** Home Assistant's own intent engine by default. You can add a cloud LLM like Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude, or a local one, as the conversation agent or as a fallback. Home Assistant calls AI control of your home experimental ([Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition](https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/)). - **Hardware:** a mute switch that cuts power to the microphones, an ESP32-S3 with an XMOS audio chip, and a 3.5mm output for a better speaker ([Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition](https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/)). ## Letting AI agents in, carefully Home Assistant can also act as an MCP server, so Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex and other MCP clients can control your home ([Home Assistant MCP server](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/mcp_server/)). Pick the Device control tool set so the agent only sees exposed entities. The full "Home Assistant" tool set needs an admin account and gives far more access. There is also a read-only option. Going the other way, the MCP client integration lets Home Assistant's own agent use outside tools ([Home Assistant MCP client](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/mcp/)). ## Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition FAQ: what it can do and what it works with ### Does Home Assistant Voice work without the cloud? Yes. Wake words run on the device, Speech-to-Phrase handles home control locally, and local Whisper needs at least an Intel N100 class machine. Source: [Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition](https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/). ### Does Home Assistant Voice keep my recordings? With Home Assistant Cloud, speech goes through Microsoft Azure and Nabu Casa says it keeps no record of your voice. Fully local setups keep audio at home. Source: [Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition](https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/). ### Can I use ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini with Home Assistant Voice? Yes, as the conversation agent or as a fallback. The Gemini integration needs a Google API key and can control the devices you expose. Home Assistant calls AI control experimental. Source: [Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition](https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/), [Home Assistant Google Gemini](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/google_generative_ai_conversation/). ### Can Claude or ChatGPT control Home Assistant over MCP? Yes. Home Assistant's MCP server integration lets MCP clients connect over OAuth. The Device control tool set limits them to exposed entities, and there is a read-only option. Source: [Home Assistant MCP server docs](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/mcp_server/). ### Is there a hardware mute? Yes. Home Assistant says the mute switch cuts power to the microphones. Source: [Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition](https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/). ## Connecting AI agents safely If you hook a device or account up to an AI agent, the agent gets the same access you do. I write about doing that safely: - [What is an MCP gateway?](/what-is-an-mcp-gateway/) - [MCP agent identity: what shipped](/mcp-agent-identity-gap/) - [MCP tool poisoning: pin your definitions](/mcp-tool-poisoning-pin-definitions/) - [Shadow MCP servers](/shadow-mcp-servers/) - [A house full of computers, and what an AI could do with them](/self-replicating-ai-smart-home/) ## Related - [Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition Review](/ai-life/assistants/smart-speakers/home-assistant-voice-preview-edition-review/) - [How to use Amazon Echo and Alexa+](/ai-life/assistants/smart-speakers/how-to-use-amazon-echo-alexa-plus/) - [How to use Apple HomePod](/ai-life/assistants/smart-speakers/how-to-use-apple-homepod/) - [All how-to guides](/ai-life/guides/) - [Smart Speakers hub](/ai-life/assistants/smart-speakers/) - [Black Friday deals](/ai-life/deals/black-friday/)