Home Assistant LLM Assistant in 2026: Add a Private AI Voice to HA (90k Stars) with Ollama - Full Setup

Home Assistant (89,719 stars) now has native LLM support: connect an Ollama model to control your smart home by voice or chat - fully private, no cloud, no monthly fee.

💡 What You Will Learn

Home Assistant (89,719 stars) now has native LLM support: connect an Ollama model to control your smart home by voice or chat - fully private, no cloud, no monthly fee.

## The short answer **Home Assistant** (89,719 stars, Apache-2.0) is the leading open-source smart home platform, and since 2024 it has built-in LLM integration: you can point it at any OpenAI-compatible endpoint - including local Ollama - and control devices with natural language. ## The setup **Step 1 - Run Ollama alongside HA** ```bash ollama pull qwen2.5:3b # small model for voice responses ollama pull llama3.1:8b # bigger model for device control ``` **Step 2 - Add the OpenAI-compatible integration in HA** Settings - Devices - Add Integration - "OpenAI Conversation" - and set the API URL to `http://:11434/v1` with a dummy key. **Step 3 - Configure the voice assistant** 1. Enable the "Assist" feature in Settings - Voice assistants. 2. Pick your local model as the conversation agent. 3. Use the Wyoming protocol with a local STT (Whisper) and TTS (Piper) for fully offline voice. ## Real numbers - HA has 20,000+ integrations covering most smart home hardware. - A 3B model answers voice commands in 1-3 seconds on a decent CPU - fine for light control. - Offline voice chain: Whisper (106,660 stars) STT + Ollama LLM + Piper TTS = zero cloud, zero cost. ## FAQ **Q: Can the LLM control devices safely?** A: Yes - HA exposes allowed entities only, and you can restrict which devices the model can touch in the integration config. **Q: What if I want cloud models?** A: The same integration accepts OpenAI or Anthropic API keys - but then voice audio and commands go to the cloud. **Q: Does it work with Apple HomeKit?** A: Yes - HA bridges to HomeKit, so the LLM assistant can control HomeKit devices too.