Smart Home Integration

Hey Boo Smart Home DRY-RUN LIVE

How Hey Boo controls your home: local command processing via Home Assistant, device categories, supported integrations, and how to replace Google Home or Alexa with a private, extensible voice assistant.

Why Home Assistant

Home Assistant is the world's most widely deployed open-source home automation platform, with over 3,000 integrations and an active community of millions. It runs entirely on hardware in your home — a Raspberry Pi, a dedicated HA Green hub, or any Linux server. This makes it the ideal foundation for a private, local-first smart-home AI.

When Hey Boo is connected to a Home Assistant instance, smart-home commands are processed locally. The voice command travels from your device to the Hey Boo intent router (which classifies what you want to do), and then the appropriate Home Assistant REST API calls are sent directly to your hub. The result: your lights, locks, and appliances respond without your home data ever leaving your local network.

Compare this to Google Home (requires Google cloud), Amazon Alexa (requires Amazon cloud), or Apple HomeKit (requires Apple cloud). Hey Boo + Home Assistant is the only mainstream voice-AI smart-home solution that can operate with zero cloud dependency for device commands.

Supported Device Categories

Through Home Assistant, Hey Boo can control any device that HA supports. The following categories are in Hey Boo's current scene registry, with example commands:

💡

Lights

Turn on/off, dim, color. Philips Hue, LIFX, Kasa, Govee, Zigbee, Z-Wave, and 200+ more brands via HA.

🔒

Locks

Lock, unlock, check status. August, Schlage, Yale, Kwikset, and all Z-Wave/Zigbee smart locks.

🌡

Thermostats

Set temperature, mode (heat/cool/auto), schedule. Nest, Ecobee, Honeywell, Lennox, and more.

📷

Security Cameras

View feeds, enable/disable recording, trigger alerts. Wyze, Ring, Amcrest, Reolink, Frigate NVR.

📡

Sensors

Door/window sensors, motion, presence, temperature, humidity, smoke, CO detectors.

⛁

Appliances

Smart plugs, robotic mowers (Husqvarna Automower, Worx Landroid), washing machines, dishwashers.

🚪

Garage & Gates

Open/close garage doors, driveway gates. MyQ, Chamberlain, Ratgdo, and more.

☀

HVAC & Fans

Ceiling fans, whole-home HVAC, ductless mini-splits, ventilation, exhaust fans.

Built-in Scenes

Hey Boo recognizes a library of common smart-home scenes. Each scene is a named collection of Home Assistant service calls. When you say a phrase that matches a scene, Hey Boo composes the appropriate API calls and (once a hub is provisioned) sends them to your HA instance.

Arrive Home

Triggers: "arrive home," "I'm home," "coming home"

Unlocks front door lock • Sets thermostat to occupied temperature • Turns on entry lights • Disarms security system • Opens garage (if configured)

Leave Home

Triggers: "leave home," "I'm leaving," "goodbye"

Locks front door lock • Sets thermostat to eco/away temperature • Turns off all interior lights • Arms security system • Closes garage

Goodnight

Triggers: "goodnight," "lights out," "bedtime," "night mode"

Turns off all non-essential lights • Locks all exterior doors • Sets thermostat to night temperature • Arms security (stay mode) • Turns off TV if configured

Morning Routine

Triggers: "good morning," "wake up mode," "start the day"

Gradually brings up entry/kitchen lights • Sets thermostat to day temperature • Starts coffee maker (if smart plug configured) • Disarms overnight security mode

Work Mode

Triggers: "work mode," "focus mode," "start working"

Sets office lights to task-level brightness • Adjusts thermostat to comfort level • Silences doorbell (if configured) • Activates do-not-disturb on integrated devices

Grounds

Triggers: "start the mower," "mow the lawn," "water the garden"

Sends start command to robotic mower (Husqvarna/Worx API via HA) • OR activates irrigation zones • Confirms action and estimated completion time

Setting Up the Integration

The Hey Boo + Home Assistant integration requires two things: a running Home Assistant instance and an access token. Here is the setup path:

1. Install Home Assistant

If you don't have Home Assistant, the easiest path is to purchase a dedicated HA Green hub (~$99) or install HA OS on a Raspberry Pi 4 or later. HA runs on any x86 Linux box as well. Installation docs: home-assistant.io/installation

2. Generate a Long-Lived Access Token

In your Home Assistant UI: Profile icon (bottom left) → Security tab → Long-lived access tokens → Create token → Copy the token value. This token is only shown once.

3. Provide HA_URL and HA_TOKEN

These values go into the Hey Boo Lambda function's environment variables. Once set, Hey Boo's smart-home commands will fire against your hub. The token is never exposed to the browser or included in any API response.

HA_URL=http://homeassistant.local:8123
HA_TOKEN=your_long_lived_access_token_here

# Example API call Hey Boo composes for "arrive home":
POST /api/services/lock/unlock
{
  "entity_id": "lock.front_door"
}

POST /api/services/climate/set_temperature
{
  "entity_id": "climate.main",
  "temperature": 72
}

POST /api/services/light/turn_on
{
  "entity_id": "light.entry",
  "brightness_pct": 80
}

4. Remote Access (Optional)

For Hey Boo to control your home when you're away (e.g., "arrive home" from the car), your HA instance needs to be accessible from outside your local network. Options:

Nabu Casa / Home Assistant Cloud: Official HA remote access service (~$65/year). Simplest option.
Cloudflare Tunnel: Free, highly secure. Routes HTTPS traffic to your local HA without opening firewall ports.
VPN (WireGuard via HA addon): Most private. Requires connecting your phone to the VPN before sending commands.

Current Status

Hey Boo's smart-home integration is fully implemented at the routing and API composition layer. The intent classifier recognizes smart-home commands, the scene registry is populated, and the Home Assistant API call payloads are correctly composed.

The integration is in dry-run mode because no Home Assistant hub is currently provisioned in the Hey Boo production environment. When you say "arrive home" in the command console, you see the exact HA API calls that would fire — but they don't actually fire because there is no hub connected.

Provisioning a hub and providing HA_URL + HA_TOKEN turns the dry-run live. This is the shortest path from current state to live smart-home control.

More documentation:

White Paper: Smart Home section | Full Capabilities | Voice Pipeline | FAQ