this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2026
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Voice calling between satellites? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 1 week ago by sunnyjim@lemmy.zip to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world
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I've been searching for a while via Ecosia, Google etc. and on Reddit but I'm struggling to find an answer.

My parents are moving together with my grandma to a new house with a little annex for my grandma. They're planning to get Alexa's so that my grandma can call through to the other side of the house if she falls over or needs help. I would love for them not to end up giving every conversation they ever have to Amazon's servers... Is there any way to replicate this functionality in Home Assistant (i.e. call between satellites across the network)? If I can figure this out I'll build a self-hosted setup for them.

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[–] sunnyjim@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. In broad strokes, here's the thinking to reply to a few comments at once:

  1. We didn't want to use a phone-based solution because she doesn't always carry her phone in the middle of the night. This goes for carrying a button.

  2. A LifeAlert system could work, but they usually involve buttons.

After talking about it, we realised that simply putting out a baby monitor or equivalent might be the most effective - she can shout at it and it will go direct. An alternative would be setting up a HA alert to broadcast based on a phrase (or a few). We'll weigh up the options but I'm leaning towards the former.

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the ideas - I think HA might not be the solution after all, but hopefully I can keep them from installing ~~wiretaps~~ Amazon Alexa in their house.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Whatever life alert-like system my Mom has …. She wears it as a pendant and it has fall sensors. When it triggers, the monitoring company calls her on the base. No buttons required.

The only limitation is there can be only one base, so the volume has to be turned way up to cover her condo