---
layout: page
title: "Snips.ai"
description: "Enhance your Hass.io installation with a local voice assistant."
date: 2018-05-02 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://snips.gitbook.io/documentation/console) to create an assistant and download the training data. You can also add the HomeAssistant Skill 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 assistant over. Name the file `assistant.zip` or whatever you have configured in the configuration options.

Now it's time to start Snips for the first time. You can configure the microphone and sound card using the addon gui.
Now start the add-on.

### Add-On configuration

```json
{
  "mqtt_bridge": {
    "active": true,
    "host": "172.17.0.1",
    "port": 1883,
    "user": "",
    "password": ""
  },
  "assistant": "assistant.zip",
  "language": "en",
  "custom_tts": false,
  "tts_platform": "amazon_polly"
}
```

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.
- **assistant** : The name of your custom assistant in /share. If no assistant is found a default assistant will be used.
- **language** : Language. This is used to select the default custom assistant, Currently en, de, and fr are supported.
- **custom_tts** : Whether to use a TTS provider from Home Assistant for a variety of voices
- **tts_platform** : Which tts platform to use.

### {% linkable_title Home Assistant configuration %}

A simple configuration just requires this. Consult [Snips.ai component][comp] for more options

```yaml
snips:
```

### {% linkable_title Home Assistant configuration %}

There is an active [discord](https://discordapp.com/invite/3939Kqx) channel for further support.

### Examples

So now you can turn lights on and off, let's check the weather. Log on to the [console](https://console.snips.ai/). If this is your first time, create a new assistant and add the Home Assistant skill, along with the Weather skill by snips. Download your assistant manually and copy it to the /share folder on your HassIO installation using the Samba addon.

Next create a weather sensor, I happen to use (Dark Sky)[/components/sensor.darksky/] and have my api_key in my secrets file.

```yaml
- platform: darksky
  name: "Dark Sky Weather"
  api_key: !secret dark_sky_key
  update_interval:
    minutes: 10
  monitored_conditions:
    - summary
    - hourly_summary
    - temperature
    - temperature_max
    - temperature_min
```
Next add this to your configuration.yaml to reference a new intent_script component.
This is a good practice to split your config files up.

```yaml
intent_script: !include intent_script.yaml
```

Finally, create this intent_script.yaml file in your config directory

{% raw %}
```yaml
searchWeatherForecast:
  speech:
    type: plain
    text: >
      The weather is currently
      {{ states('sensor.dark_sky_weather_temperature') | round(0) }}
      degrees outside and {{ states('sensor.dark_sky_weather_summary') }}.
      The high today will be
      {{ states('sensor.dark_sky_weather_daily_high_temperature') | round(0)}}
      and {{ states('sensor.dark_sky_weather_hourly_summary') }}
```
{% endraw %}

Now just restart HassIO and ask it what the weather is like!



[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/