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Home Hub

Entertainment system with Home Assistant, smart speakers, and voice control

Overview​

Home Hub is a Dell Inspiron 14 5420 laptop repurposed as a living room entertainment center and smart home controller. It runs Debian 12 with a Cinnamon desktop and combines:

  • Media playback — YouTube, Netflix, and web browsing via Brave browser
  • Home Assistant Supervised — Orchestrating smart home devices and automations
  • Custom ESP32 WiFi smart speaker — Voice-controlled audio routing and assistant capabilities
  • PipeWire audio — Managing audio output between laptop speakers and networked devices

Hardware​

ComponentDetail
MachineDell Inspiron 14 5420
AudioIntel sof-hda-dsp (ALSA card 0) via PipeWire
OSDebian 12 (Bookworm)
DesktopCinnamon / LightDM
DockerHome Assistant Supervised

Architecture​

┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐
│           Home Hub (Laptop)              │
│                                          │
│  ┌──────────┐  ┌───────────────────────┐ │
│  │  Brave   │  │  Home Assistant       │ │
│  │ Browser  │  │  (Docker/Supervised)  │ │
│  │          │  │                       │ │
│  │ YouTube  │  │  Assist Pipeline      │ │
│  │ Netflix  │  │  (STT/TTS)           │ │
│  └────┬─────┘  └──────────┬────────────┘ │
│       │                   │              │
│  ┌────▼───────────────────▼────────────┐ │
│  │         PipeWire Audio              │ │
│  └────┬────────────────────────────────┘ │
│       │                                  │
└───────┼──────────────────────────────────┘
        │
        ▼ (WiFi)
  ┌─────────────┐
  │  ESP32      │
  │  Smart      │
  │  Speaker    │
  │  (ESPHome)  │
  └─────────────┘

Features​

  • Reliable audio — PipeWire audio stack with hassio_audio conflict permanently resolved via systemd service
  • Home Assistant Supervised — Full HA installation with ESPHome addon for ESP32 firmware management
  • hassio_audio isolation — Custom systemd service uses nsenter to mask /dev/snd inside the container, keeping the supervisor happy while freeing ALSA for PipeWire
  • ESP32 smart speaker (planned) — WiFi-based voice assistant using ESPHome's voice_assistant component
  • Voice-controlled audio routing (planned) — Route audio between laptop speakers and ESP32 via voice commands

Quick Start​

# SSH into Home Hub
ssh rob@192.168.0.166

# Check audio status
wpctl status

# Check Home Assistant containers
sudo docker ps --format "table {{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}"

# Verify hassio_audio is neutered
sudo systemctl status disable-hassio-audio.service

# Access Home Assistant web UI
# http://192.168.0.166:8123

Key Decisions​

  • PipeWire over PulseAudio — Better ALSA integration and lower latency
  • hassio_audio disabled — Home Assistant's audio container locks ALSA devices; ESP32 speaker communicates over WiFi instead
  • ESPHome for ESP32 — Native Home Assistant integration via voice_assistant component
  • Browser-based streaming — No dedicated media server needed for initial setup

This project is part of the development ecosystem: