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Amazon Mulls $5 to $10 monthly price tag for unprofitable Alexa service, AI revamp
(www.reuters.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
It shouldn't take a subscription to manage turning on lights.
You can very easily do it locally.
With voice control?
Yes
https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/
Which is why I said
Unfortunately, when I looked most recently it still wasn't even remotely close to being ready. Particularly the hardware options.
They say that you can build one for $13.
https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/thirteen-usd-voice-remote/
They also have on their roadmap that they’re working to see if they can build or engineer ~~out~~ or whatever an all in one, easy to set up voice satellite hardware as one of their next up priorities.
https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2024/06/12/roadmap-2024h1/
Once the second thing happens, assuming it's any good, then I will look into switching again.
Until then, there don't seem to be many great options.