Listen! … voice interaction with home automation

I have used an openHAB based home automation setup for several years now, and I am mostly happy with it … except in those very lazy moments where I just want to turn on a light, and wish I didn’t have to to pull my phone from my pocket, unlock it, open the openHAB app, navigate to the right UI page, and push a button. So … I decided it was time for voice-based interaction, Alexa style.

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My Home Automation story, part 1: Objectives

I decided to install some IoT equipment as an experiment, primarily to see if/how “home automation” would affect my behavior and decisions in daily life. I am basically using myself as a guinea pig, to study how technology will affect daily routine … and as a nice side effect, I get to dabble in electronics and embedded software!

Let me share with you how I designed and implemented a home automation solution in my house. The focus of these posts is not just on technology, on how I did it, but also on why I did it: what were my objectives? What were the expected vs the real benefits? Are there any lessons learned? This is about sharing my experience in defining and building something, not giving you my opinions on what you should want.

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