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The original was posted on /r/homeassistant by /u/Brownard_GH on 2026-02-28 21:44:06+00:00.
Hi all, I released an initial version of my app, Ava, a couple of months ago (original post) and have just released v0.5.0. Inspired by the great work being done on Linux Voice Assistant I set out to create an equivalent implementation that could run natively on Android with minimal configuration and no need for additional Home Assistant integration.
Its a native android app that integrates with Home Assistant using the ESPHome API (the same as used by the Voice PE) to give you a fully featured and fully integrated voice assistant without the need for anything extra to be installed on the Home Assistant side, including
- on device wake word support using microWakeWord models
- announcements
- conversations
- timers
- media playback
There is a fork of my app (https://github.com/knoop7/Ava) that has integrated lots of additional dashboard related features, but my intention has always been to keep my app narrowly focused on the voice side as a background service and otherwise stay out of your way so you can continue to use your existing dashboards, etc.
Since the initial release, there have been a number of improvements, notably
- Custom wake word support - its now possible to use custom wake words supported by microWakeWord
- Multiple wake words - select up to two different wake words and associated pipelines (this is the limit currently imposed by Home Assistant's ESPHome integration)
- Improvements to timer handling
- Customisable wake and timer sounds
- General improvements around responsiveness, pipeline handling and bug fixes.
Getting started:
- Ensure you have a working assist pipeline in Home Assistant, see here for further information.
- Install and run the app
- Click Start to start the voice satellite service, it will continue to run in the background until manually stopped
- Add the Android device to Home Assistant as an ESPHome device, either through auto-discovery or by manually adding using the device's IP and port (default 6053) in the ESPHome integration (detailed instructions here). It should then be detected as a voice satellite and Home Assistant should guide you through the rest of the setup process.
Requires Android 8 or above.
Check it out on GitHub here https://github.com/brownard/Ava