Thanks JB and Bear. Unless I misunderstand or you guys tell me otherwise, it sounds like WiFi is required for Home Kit to control devices via voice. I get the control may be local (like HE), but like Echo devices the voice command requires cloud connection.
To be clear this is no shortfall or negativity toward Hubitat. Hubitat rocks! Please stay local!
Thank you thebearmay and JBrown.
Not true if you are on your home wifi. Wifi doesn’t mean cloud. You do need the cloud to control devices remotely (not on your home’s wifi), but when you’re on your wifi, simple commands from Siri to control devices on Apple Home do not require the cloud.
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I believe this is what you are looking for. Short story is, voice recognition is done locally if you have a Home hub (ex Homepod Mini). Then the commands to HE are also locally.
This is the second thread asking this.
Maybe I will block my homepod from the internet at the router and see if I can still voice activate devices. Its worth testing I think.
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This seems worth emphasizing to hopefully help avoid confusion.
WiFi is a wireless protocol that connects devices locally to your router without having to use an Ethernet (wired) connection. Your router is then connected to the internet, probably with a wire but for some people that’s a wireless connection too.
Your internet connection could be down, but if your local WiFi network is functioning, Siri still has some processing capability for voice commands.
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So I am testing this out and getting an odd result. I blocked the Homepod and my phone from the internet, disconnected cellular. They are both on Wifi still so can talk to each other. Tested trying to stream music and they cannot get online.
On the homepod, Siri cannot seem to process homekit commands locally. It complained it could not get online. On my phone however, Siri was able to turn a light on/off pretty much instantly. I read some vauge info online and it sounds like the local processing of Homekit commands was added in iOS 16 which my phone has, but I have not seen any recent updates to the Homepod Mini so maybe it is coming to that soon?
While the voice command may need to be processed using an internet connection, once Siri knows what you want the command to HE will be local from the Homepod (or your phone) straight to the Hub. I definitely notice the difference in response time, Homekit is much faster than Alexa (which sends commands to HE via a cloud connection if I am not mistaken).
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Nice test. I’ve only tried it with my iPhone and of course you can use the iPhone interface. I read that the newer Apple Watches have this capability (local voice processing) that isn’t available on watches prior to series 4 or 5 (?). I thought that the HomePod mini had the same SOC.
On the other hand, It does seem that voice commands to my iPhone execute faster than from my watch or HomePods.
Edit: are you talking HomePod or HomePod mini?
Homepod Mini (I fixed above), purchased last year around this time for the sole purpose of being a homekit hub.
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Thank you all for offering input. Perhaps you understand my confusion and the cause for my question. Which persists even now, please forgive me if I'm missing something; Siri needs an internet connection to some outside point in order to direct or process voice commands, just like Alexa. Confusion seems to persist. We know HE operates locally (that is one of the reasons it's loved) and not in question. If I am in a room and I say (Alexa/Siri) turn on the light, I'm still hearing the voice prompt is "heard" by (Alexa/Siri) and she then sends some information via internet to a non local entity/place/location/server somewhere outside my home to be processed, a signal is then returned to my local system and finally to HE to perform the action. Call it cloud or server or whatever, the bottom line is do these voice systems need a non local element or step? I'm hearing, yes an internet connection to the outside world is required.
Yes? or No?
Thanks Ken. My apologies for confusing the point by using loose or perhaps incorrect terminology. I should have said internet connection to the World Wide Web rather than WiFi.
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AWESOME! Thank you JT. This is exactly what I meant. Local voice control is huge. I can't be the only one who sees and reads so many confusing messages about this. It seems to be lost in other bits of information. Thank you for posting this article.
Chiming in on this thread - and maybe someone can help explain... I don't have a Home Pod, but do have two Apple TV 4K (1st and 3rd gen) functioning as my home hub. Internet-connectivity went down and my Hubitat/HomeKit Integration Beta integrations failed to work when using the Home app or Siri on the phone (no cellular but on local wifi). Does anyone know why this would be? Is the fully-local voice recognition functionality limited to Home Pods only? My other Hubitat/Homebridge integrations (via Maker API) continued to work locally from the phone (both Home app/Siri). I moved a simple light switch off the HomeKit Integration Beta (not responding) to the Homebridge Maker API and the light switch worked locally as expected.
It sounds like a Homekit Beta issue @gopher.ny should look at since homebridge Hubitat devices continued to work. I haven’t tried this experiment yet with the Homekit Beta (my internet hasn’t been down in a long time), but know it worked with Homebridge when I disconnected my router from the internet.
I too was also surprised to see devices on the HomeKit Beta stop responding when the internet went down. If it helps: I'm running C5 hardware on v2.3.4.139.
Had to try this myself. I disconnected my internet. Everything still worked fine from the Home app. I do have Homepod Mini's if that makes any difference.
EDIT: Just realized I didn't interpret the issue correctly. So I tried again, and no voice control with Internet off either.
Voice control from a phone with ios 16 works offline, possibly with limited commands. See
My testing above: HomeKit Voice control, Local or Internet access required? - #11 by jtp10181
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Noted, I'll experiment with that.
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Thank you all for continuing this discussion.
After my original question, I got an Apple HomePod mini for Christmas. Set it up, connecting with HE home bridge, and it's beautiful. However, I find Voice commands via HomePod mini do not function without internet connection.
Correct, I also stated that in my testing above. There was some speculation the Homepod Mini may be able to do it in the future, but nothing confirmed that I saw.
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