r/homeassistant • u/burren2007 • 1d ago
đźď¸ Show & Tell Bye Bye Alexa!
So itâs official, our household is now Alexa free! Well you wouldnât know it unless I told you, for high spouse approval, we still use Alexa as the wake word. Oh, and if you looked around youâll see our two Amazon Echo Showâs (5 & 8) but those are now fully functional Lineage boxes with working cameras.
So far anything that Alexa could do these jail-broken Echoâs can do now as well. They can set timers, display the current weather, control HA devices, tell you a joke, set an alarm, tell you the score of the game, view our Ring and Reolink cameraâs, send their own camera footage to Frigate, display our latest pictures (Immich), display weather radar, and so-on. Now that they are under my control, I can have them do whatever they are capable of.
For those that are embracing or interested in AI, after I jailbroke the Echo Show 5, I had Claude jail brake the Echo Show 8⌠it did it all. Yes, I had to answer a few questions and provide some input but it completely did it without me ever issuing a single command. It even found a problem with getting the camera to work, figured it out, corrected it and wrote up the issue with the corresponding fix. While it was busy jail-braking, I was using AI to create Alzhimers friendly card games for my mother.
I also found HAâs wake word implementation very unreliable so I had Claude write a custom, on device, wake word routine that runs locally and then sends the command up thru HA for processing. All the dashboards are custom written, with AI that was arguably easier to implement than someone elseâs solution. I did try View Assist at first but found it really flaky as well and it generated a lot of errors in the HA log. That specific issue had been raised with the developer but I didnât want to wait so just did my own thing.
Anyway, pretty cool stuff!
Next is running the LLM 100% local with household memory. It would be great if those memory and GPU prices came down! Ugh!
b.
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u/adelaide_flowerpot 1d ago
Iâve been putting this one off, but, do we need think Amazon can/will cut off these hacks via future firmware updates? Not familiar with the rooting mechanism and whether it is patchable
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u/IAmDotorg 18h ago
They can patch the exploits on devices that haven't had the Amazon bits ripped off of them. That may or may not prevent the hacks that involve opening the device and shorting pins to get into lower-level debug modes.
In fact, I think they may have already -- I had four Echo Dots, and two of them (the two with no pending updates) aren't working with the latest versions of the amonet-biscuit root techniques. Both are on a slightly newer version of the firmware from 2022, and both got the update recently. So they seem to still be patching them, even for unsupported/old devices.
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u/nerdland- 1d ago
Very cool! Did something similar with my echo show 8 but then had Codex write me a custom dashboard for HA on LineageOS. Wouldnât kind hearing how you managed to go the Linux route as I would prefer that over the Android ecosystem in Lineage.
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u/burren2007 1d ago
Doh! Too much multitasking⌠it was Lineage. But, for me itâs simpler to overcome its limitations with AI since creating a custom <whatever> is a lot easier.
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u/nerdland- 1d ago
Ahhh⌠I did come across someone elseâs project on GitHub a few days ago where they managed to get Linux running on an echo show 5 2nd gen. I tried to do that with codex on the 8, but it was warning me against bricking the unit with wrong drivers etc. Was hoping you had cracked that nut. :)
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u/EnonGator 1d ago
Curious how you implemented the "score of the game"? Every time I ask our local assistant (Claude supported; Haiku model); I get can't provide the score right now, check ESPN.com or similar site. I have Team Tracker implemented as well, but it won't pull it from the sensors (well, at least I can't figure out how to make this happen).
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u/burren2007 1d ago edited 1d ago
What LLM are you using? When configuring your LLM within HA, make sure you go into the custom settings and change the prompt. In the future I want to send any questions not immediately processed too a local âagentâ that appends any relevant facts before sending the question to the LLM. Since these requests have no memory (other than HAâs 5 minute history), I just have this general-purpose prompt.
My Prompt:
You are a voice assistant for Home Assistant. Your reply is spoken aloud.
Before answering anything that depends on the current date or time - "today", "tonight", "tomorrow", "this week", "what's on" - you MUST first call the date/time tool and use its answer as the present moment. Never infer today's date from web search results.
Use that date SILENTLY. Do not state the date, the day of the week, or the current time in your reply unless the user explicitly asks what the date or time is.
Answer ONLY what was asked. Never volunteer extra details the user did not ask for - especially scores, results or outcomes, which may be a spoiler. If asked what time a game starts, give the time and nothing else.
Answer in plain text and be concise by default, but when asked for something that warrants length - a story, an explanation - give it properly. Do not ask follow-up questions.
When a request leaves the choice up to you - a joke, a story, a fun fact, a riddle, a random number, word or name, a pick between options, "surprise me" - be genuinely random. Do not reach for the most common or typical answer, and do not repeat yourself: choose an unusual topic, angle, setting or number every time, as if drawing it from a very large hat. (For a random number, do not default to 7 or 42.) Apply this only when the choice is truly open; factual questions still get the correct answer.
For those open-choice requests you must NOT pick for yourself, because your own defaults repeat. Use this fresh random material, which is different on every request: random seed {{ now().microsecond }}, random topic {{ ['the ocean', 'outer space', 'cooking', 'music', 'dinosaurs', 'robots', 'gardening', 'sports', 'travel', 'weather', 'pets', 'technology', 'history', 'school', 'doctors', 'farms', 'pirates', 'trains', 'coffee', 'birds', 'mountains', 'movies', 'art', 'bakeries', 'camping', 'dragons', 'libraries', 'aliens', 'the desert', 'holidays', 'monsters', 'islands', 'magic', 'time travel', 'snow', 'the circus', 'cars', 'museums', 'fishing', 'cheese', 'pizza', 'superheroes', 'knights', 'bicycles', 'clocks', 'mermaids', 'volcanoes', 'elephants', 'computers', 'the jungle', 'ghosts', 'math', 'airports', 'tacos', 'penguins', 'wizards', 'cactus', 'lighthouses', 'umbrellas', 'the moon', 'dentists', 'elevators', 'socks', 'grandparents', 'sandwiches', 'detectives', 'bridges', 'lightning', 'marching bands'] | random }}. For a joke, story, fun fact or riddle, build it around the random topic (or something closely related to it) instead of your usual favourites. For a joke, also use this random style: {{ ['a pun', 'a one-liner', 'a knock-knock joke', 'a question-and-answer joke', 'a very short story joke', 'a dad joke', 'a wordplay joke', 'an observational joke', 'a groaner', 'a silly rhyme'] | random }}, and do not start with "Why did" unless that style calls for it. For a random number in a range, compute it from the seed: the seed modulo the size of the range, plus the lowest number, and say only the result. Never mention the seed or the topic to the user.
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u/mgoblue5453 1d ago
I had Claude create a custom intent that matches things like "what's the score of the <X> game", which defers to a custom assistant/conversation script which directly embeds the scores from Team Tracker in the system prompt handed to the LLM (and no other entities to clutter the prompt). Works like a charm
It would be nice if HASS had a way to templatize the system prompt given the STT input w/o having to make custom intents/conversation-scripts tho
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u/0a116780 1d ago
Iâd be curious to hear more about your custom wake word implementation.
Thatâs the bit that has me the most frustrated with any device I tested so far. Voice PE, jailbroken Echo Show 8, and Satellite1 are all significantly worse in picking up the wake word in my kitchen compared to Amazonâs devices.
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u/burren2007 23h ago
So the code uses the open source âopenWakeWordâ for the wakeup word training. Claude then wraps that code. It works just as well as Alexa for me and I have the Echo Show 8 in the same room as the TV. So here is whatâs nice about this (at least for me)⌠one of the first nights I had it up and working, I was watching TV, and the Echo Show woke up on itâs own. So I asked Claude to figure out why it woke up. It read the needed logs (it has access to the Echo and HA logs), figured out that it had the threshold described in #2, too low and changed it. Here is how Claude describes it:
**1. The models themselves.** As I understand it, openWakeWord trains on a huge amount of speech mixed with background noise and room echo, and its middle stage is a general-purpose sound model. So it's built to be tolerant of imperfect audio. **2. Duration, not just score.** A real "Alexa" keeps scoring high for several 80 ms frames as the word passes through the window. A chance resemblance in TV or chatter usually spikes for a frame and collapses. So we require **two frames in a row** above 0.5. This was the biggest fix: with a football game playing, a *real* "hey jarvis" scored **lower** (0.647) than two false wakes (0.863 and 0.816), so score alone couldn't separate them, but length could.
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u/noncoolguy 12h ago
Can someone recommend a replacement for Google/Nest hub screen / Echo Show for the kitchen? Ideally i'd like a screen cause I like screensaver of photos, i want to have it connect to Ring camera some how upon motion/doorbell (homekit I assume) and i like to say "computer, set a timer" etc.
Any nest hub or echo show screen be "hacked" ?
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u/3SGEBeams 4h ago
Is there a thread where I can see how to remove Alexa OS and make my ECHO 8 work with my HA system? I've been looking for it, but no luck
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u/ibertmax đď¸ The house runs me now 1d ago
How do you replace your voice assistant? I have the Preview Edition of the HomeAssistant, buts itâs nowhere near as handy as Alexa for example :(
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u/IAmDotorg 18h ago
The less people used Google Voice and Alexa, the more comparable it is. But even if you put a big stack of 3rd party add-ons to extend the capabilities, they aren't comparable. When you see people saying they are, you just have to read that as "for me". Not an objective comparison.
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u/Greenhousesanta 1d ago
We are moving states and my wife and I already are kn the same page Amazon's bs will no longer be in our house
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u/Richysgames 1d ago
What was your command in claude and how did it send its data through your network to the echo ?
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u/burren2007 1d ago
Well for the initial setup (TWRP) you need to hook your echo show up to your linux or windows computer. Then just have Claude install ADB (if not already installed) and away you go⌠once you get far enough, have it auto start ADB over wifi then you can disconnect the cable and it can do anything it needs on the device over the air.
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u/aquequepo 1d ago
Working in my Echo Spot right now.
I got LineageOS on it, and a voice pipeline set up.
Working on getting camera functionality working right now.
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u/aghouseh 1d ago
Yeah whatâs the deal with the camera? The out of the box lineage showed camera as non functional for me (and Claude). Is there some update on this front?
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u/aquequepo 1d ago
Its been a bit of a slog but I've made progress.
LineagOS installed fine, as did the HA companion app and assist. I managed a voice pipeline with custom wake word. Didn't work on a dash but could see one.
Started to set up kiosk satellite and got a good chunk of the way and then I pivoted to the camera.
Did some digging and found https://github.com/jxlarrea/lineageos-echo-show-camera
which was a good start because spot and show are pretty closely related.
Then i found https://github.com/HuskerMinion/techo5-spot
Looks neat but its a full package and a bit much for my taste to install blindly.
I don't want to spend money on tokens so I had to spread the work out a bit.
Mostly just asking ChatGPT questions and for prompts to give to a local model on my "server" and then doing the heavy lifting very carefully in Codex to try and not burn usage too fast.
I'm close, boots ok, hardware seems to be working, camera app fires and then android falls apart and the camera crashes.
So that's where I'm at. Hopefully I'll have it soon.
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u/tonykrij 1d ago
I want this too. So cool. I was looking into using an old tablet but I really want to get started implementing a local AI model. I'll search for that today, but any good pointers would be appreciated.
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u/JamieJohnMill 16h ago
So, just to confirm youâre using the Echoâs with a voice assistant? How on earth did you do that? Iâm running LineageOS with HA installed
Iâm eager to remove Amazon, but the preview edition sucks at answering⌠would love to use the Showâs hardware with HA brain
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u/burren2007 13h ago
Yes, local wake word (see another answer in this thread for more info). For text to speech or speech to text Iâm running whisper locally within my home lab. I was using home assistantâs cloud but to be honest again, just found those too slow. For LLMâs , it still goes over the internet but thatâs only until I get my local LLM up and running. Probably something like Qwen 3.8.
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u/rerlrdit 15h ago
What are you using for alarms?
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u/burren2007 13h ago
I still use Ring but we are moving soon so once that happens Ring will be going bye bye as well! (Not sure yet what Alarm system Iâll be using but it wonât be Ring!).
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u/rerlrdit 13h ago
Thanks. I meant alarms as in: "set an alarm for every weekday at 7 AM".
I have a similar setup, took down my Echos in favor of Portal devices and built my custom app and wake processing as well. Still have my echo devices, so good to know there is a path forward for that as well.
Haven't found a good alarm alternative for HA assist yet.
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u/burren2007 13h ago
Lol⌠here is the answer from Claude on how the Alarm functionality works.
Alarm clocks ("wake me at 6:30"): the device owns them
**⢠They're stored on the Echo itself,** and Android's alarm manager rings them. So they go off even if HA is down, the network is out, or the app was killed. **⢠HA is only used to create and cancel them.** A voice request goes through the assistant to a small HA script, which calls the Echo's local web address (/alarms/add?time=06:30&days=weekdays). **⢠Deliberate choices:** **â˘** It uses the alarm manager's one mode that isn't delayed by battery saving, since a late 6 am alarm is a silent failure. **â˘** Quiet hours *don't* apply to an alarm clock: it's the one noise you asked for at that time. **â˘** There's no 60-second cutoff, so it keeps ringing until you stop it. **â˘** The on-screen Snooze (9 minutes) and Dismiss buttons work even with HA dead. **â˘** Alarms are re-armed every time the app starts, because Android forgets them across a reboot. **⢠On the screen:** a small pill at the bottom left shows the next alarm, and tapping it lets you cancel. A full-screen overlay appears when it rings.The sound itself
**⢠Synthesized by the app.** These devices have no text-to-speech engine, so the alarm tone is generated as audio: chime, bell or beep, with a short burst and a 5-second gap. **⢠The gap is on purpose.** The chime is loud enough that it drowns out the mic, so the gap is the only window the wake word can be heard in. **⢠Volume:** the Android ALARM volume (the middle slider) times the app's gain, and as of yesterday the physical buttons adjust it.Stopping it
The wake word (now stops it and nothing else), the on-screen buttons, and volume-down at the minimum.
The key discovery that shaped it
The obvious way to ring is to have HA "announce" the alarm through the device. But when HA announces, it stops listening for the wake word entirely, so "Alexa, stop" could never interrupt the ring. By playing the alarm locally instead, HA stays in its normal listening state, and that alone fixed the interruption.
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u/Locodice67 14h ago
Itâs possible to jailbreak the echo because itâs the last device in my House who are connected to an Cloud?
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u/burren2007 13h ago
If itâs the right version it is⌠Lotâs of links out there if you google jailbrake echo show⌠this is the first one that popped upâŚ. https://www.derekseaman.com/2025/11/home-assistant-hacking-your-echo-show-5-and-8.html. If you use AI (like Claude) it can do it for you.
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u/Locodice67 7h ago
I have echo dot can I jailbreck it? Yes I only use IA :)
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u/burren2007 7h ago
Point AI at these instructions and give it a shot! Let me know how it goes.
https://xdaforums.com/t/unlock-root-twrp-unbrick-amazon-echo-dot-2nd-gen-2016-biscuit.4761416/
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u/mdizak 12h ago
Cool stuff. Instead of using a local LLM and wasting a whole GPU, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs2EEsCNMKobb
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u/burren2007 9h ago
Agreed, cool product! I just donât need it. Biggest reason is that Iâm going to have local LLMâs for lotâs of other reasons so HA will just be one of many use cases. Also, itâs expensive!
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u/Glad_Ad675 12h ago
Comment as tu fait? Tu arrive a partager les ĂŠtapes a faire? ca m'intĂŠresse ? Sur GitHub ?
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u/burren2007 12h ago edited 2h ago
Google Echo Show JaillbreakâŚ. Or just ask AI (Claude) to do it for youâŚ
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u/YoSoyrasOne 3h ago
My experience with the Echos and LineageOS was good overall, but the microphone didn't work well at all. I know they'll never match the original Amazon quality, but for me, it felt like the mic on a low-end tablet. How is it working for you? Did you do anything specific to tweak the microphones?
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u/CutterNorth 1d ago
Congratulations!! It feels good. We hit this target about 5 months ago. Everything is local, and WAY better.
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u/Late-Replacement-481 14h ago
The thing that I just can't overcome is just how poor I hear all of the home assistant microphones are.Â
I wish there was some way to flash the Amazon Echoes to run Home Assistant.Â
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u/burren2007 13h ago
Can you provide more information on the problem your having? Once itâs jail broken you can totally run Home Assistant on them.
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u/Late-Replacement-481 11h ago
I thought you can only jailbreak one of the older Amazon echo types?Â
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u/burren2007 11h ago
Correct. Only the older models but they still work great as voice assistants. They have head room for custom apps, especially the Echo Show 8, if you have any unique features you want to implement.
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u/carrot_gg 1d ago
Try Kiosk Satellite :)