1 week ago
Tues Jul 29, 2025 3:18pm PST
Ask HN: Where is a local (no cloud audio) voice assistant useful?
We're exploring a fully local voice assistant (wake word -> ASR -> LLM -> TTS, all on-device). No audio or transcripts ever leave the device.

Context: Alexa ended a niche "Do Not Send Voice Recordings" (local-processing) option on Mar 28, 2025; it had long processed most requests in the cloud, and that continues. You can still choose not to save recordings after processing.

To be clear: our device may periodically fetch non-voice data (e.g., weather/traffic). And on user command (e.g., send an email), it may call user-selected APIs/tools, sending only the necessary structured fields, not audio or transcripts.

No sales and no public link. I'm trying to learn if there's real demand and where.

Short, blunt answers welcome:

1. Experience: In the last 12 months, did you disable, avoid, or remove a voice assistant? (yes/no) If yes, one line reason (e.g., privacy, company policy/compliance, recognition/answer accuracy, false wakes, latency).

2. Context & scale: Where did you use or plan to use it (e.g., home, meeting rooms/offices, hotels, cars, healthcare, government/police), and roughly at what scale (# rooms, devices, or users)?

3. Alternative & outcome: What did you use instead (e.g., tablet, app, local-only assistant, manual), and did it meet the need? (yes/mostly/no)

4. Comments: Any other relevant detail (even one line) is welcome.

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