---
layout: page
title: "Snips.ai"
description: "Enhance your Hass.io installation with a local voice assistant."
date: 2018-03-22 13:28
sidebar: true
comments: false
sharing: true
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---

[Snips.ai] is an AI-powered voice assistant that runs on the Raspberry Pi 3 and x86 platforms. It runs on-device and is Private by Design.

The Snips add-on depends on the Mosquitto add on to bridge to Home Assistant, so make sure that is installed.

HomeAssistant comes with certain Intents builtin to handle common tasks. A complete list of Intents can be found in this wiki [Hass Snips Bundle](https://github.com/tschmidty69/hass-snips-bundle-intents/wiki).

The Snips addon by default comes with an assistant that allows you to turn on lights or switches, open covers, or add and list items to a shopping list if that component is enabled.

If using a USB microphone and speakers plugged into the raspberry pi output, Snips will work without any change to the configuration. Trying saying things like:

```
Turn on kitchen light
Open garage door
What is on my shopping list
```

To get started creating your own configuration, follow [their tutorial](https://github.com/snipsco/snips-platform-documentation/wiki/2.-Create-an-assistant-using-an-existing-bundle) to create an assistant and download the training data. You can add the HomeAssistant bundle to your assistant to enable the built-in intents, and add or create your own intents to do more complex tasks.

Now install and activate the [Samba] add-on so you can upload your training data. Connect to the "share" Samba share and copy your training data over. Name the file `assistant.zip`.

Now it's time to start Snips for the first time. When the Snips add-on starts, it will output your audio devices. If you are using a USB mic and the raspberry pi output, you won't need to change anything:

```text
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 0: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA]
  Subdevices: 8/8
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
  Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
  Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
  Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
  Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 1: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 IEC958/HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
```

You need to use this information to point the add-on at the right speakers and microphone. The information describes different cards and devices. On a Raspberry Pi 3, card 0 - device 0 is the built-in headset port, card 0 - device 1 is the HDMI port. In the example above, the USB microphone showed up as card 1 - device 0.

Find the microphone and speakers that you want to use and note down their device and card number. We will need that to configure the add-on options `mic` (microphone to use) and `speaker` (speaker to use). The format for these options is `<card #>,<device #>`. Change the configuration options and click save.

Now start the add-on.

### Add-On configuration

```json
{
  "mic": "1,0",
  "speaker": "1,0",
  "assistant": "assistant.zip",
  "mqtt_bridge": {
    "active": true,
    "host": "172.17.0.1",
    "port": 1883,
    "user": "",
    "password": ""
  },
}
```

Configuration variables:

- **mqtt_bridge** : Snips uses MQTT to communicate and defaults to their own broker. Use this config option to bridge their broker to your the Mosquitto add-on.
- **mic**: This is the hardware address of your microphone. Look at the Snips output if you are using different hardware.

### {% linkable_title Home Assistant configuration %}

Use the Home Assistant [Snips.ai component][comp] to integrate the add-on into Home Assistant.

```yaml
snips:
```

[Snips.ai]: https://snips.ai/
[their tutorial]: https://github.com/snipsco/snips-platform-documentation/wiki/2.-Create-an-assistant-using-an-existing-bundle
[Samba]: /addons/samba/
[comp]: /components/snips/