Changelog
What's been built so far
A transparent look at every major feature, safeguard, and decision behind Kacy Brain.
A local AI voice assistant running directly inside Home Assistant — no cloud required.
Kacy controls lights, blinds, and heating through natural language, using the
HA Extended OpenAI Conversation Integration
as its entry point. From day one, everything stays on your hardware.
- Local AI inference — no data leaves your network
- Natural language control of lights, blinds, and heating
- Compatible with Home Assistant Extended OpenAI Conversation Integration
- Runs on Raspberry Pi — no dedicated server required
Spoken device names like "living room lamp" map precisely to exact Home Assistant entity IDs.
The alias list is validated automatically at startup. If a device name isn't registered,
Kacy rejects it cleanly rather than guessing — keeping your home under control, not chance.
- Spoken names map to exact HA entity IDs
- Automatic alias validation on every startup
- Clear, graceful rejection for unrecognised device names
- No silent guessing — every action is intentional
Production-grade safeguards built in from the start — not bolted on later.
Kacy is designed to run reliably for months without intervention.
Safeguards included
- Bearer token authentication on every request
- Rate limiting — 30 requests per minute maximum
- Rotating log files (5 MB per file, 3 backups retained)
- Quiet mode 22:00–05:00 — no autonomous light or lock actions overnight
License validation runs against smarthomeblox.com with a 7-day grace period, so
temporary connectivity issues never interrupt your smart home. The install script
handles everything in a single line — systemd services start Kacy automatically
after every reboot, and a dedicated health endpoint lets you confirm the system is alive.
- License validation with 7-day offline grace period
- One-line install script — no manual configuration steps
- systemd service for reliable auto-start on boot
- Health-check endpoint at
/health
Kacy now supports two AI backends — switch between them directly in the browser,
no SSH or terminal required. Choose maximum quality or maximum speed depending
on what your household needs at that moment.
Available providers
Claude Haiku
~1.5s · max quality
Groq Llama 3.3 70B
~0.5s ⚡ 3× faster
Kacy remembers. Verified interactions are stored locally in SQLite and retrieved
via TF-IDF similarity search — the more you use Kacy, the smarter the responses get.
A browser-based admin dashboard lets you review and manage stored knowledge directly.
Not a single byte is uploaded to the cloud.
- SQLite storage — everything stays on your device
- TF-IDF similarity search for intelligent context retrieval
- Browser-based admin dashboard for managing knowledge
- No cloud data uploads — ever
Instead of shouting at a foreign brand name, you just say "Hey Kacy."
M5Stack ATOM Echo hardware combined with a custom wake word trained via openWakeWord
makes your assistant truly your own — a name your household recognises, not a corporate product.
- M5Stack ATOM Echo hardware support (~€15)
- Custom "Hey Kacy" wake word via openWakeWord
- Trainable on your own voice samples
- No dependency on Nabu Casa or third-party wake word services
Two solid paths to wake-word activation — one is immediate and free, the other gives you
full brand ownership. Here is what each one actually means in practice:
- No extra device needed — works immediately
- Good microphone quality out of the box
- Zero hardware cost
- Wake word tied to Nabu Casa — not customisable
- Must use a name that isn't "Kacy"
- No independent room placement
- Custom "Hey Kacy" wake word
- Independently placeable — mount it anywhere
- Deploy multiple units across rooms
- Professional branding, fully your own
- ~€15 hardware cost per device
- ~20 minutes of setup time
First successful real-world test on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W. Setup, license activation,
and full voice control all worked correctly on the very first attempt — no debugging,
no workarounds. Kacy running production-ready on the smallest Pi in the lineup.
-
HTTPS encryption via nginx
Secure remote access — encrypted from browser to Kacy, even outside your home network.
-
Routine automation
Kacy suggests actions before you ask — learning your patterns and preparing the home for what comes next.
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Multi-language support
Kacy speaks your family's language — German, English, and more, switchable without reconfiguration.