Say a TTS message

Use this action to turn text into speech and play it on a media player using a legacy text-to-speech platform set up through YAML. If you set up text-to-speech through the UI, use Speak instead.

Each legacy platform registers its own version of this action, named after the platform. For example, the Google Translate platform registers it as tts.google_translate_say. Replace the platform part with the platform you use.

Using this action from the user interface

If you prefer building automations and scripts visually, Home Assistant walks you through this action step by step. You pick what to target, tweak a few options, and save. No YAML knowledge required.

To say a message from an automation or a script:

1. Go to Settings > Automations & scenes.
2. Open an existing automation or script, or select Create automation > Create new automation.
3. If you’re setting up a new automation, add a trigger in the When section. Scripts don’t need a trigger. They run when something else calls them.
4. In the Then do section, select Add action.
5. Search for and select Say a TTS message for the platform you use.
6. Select the Entity to play the message on, set the Message, and any other options.
7. Select Save.

Options in the UI

Using this action in YAML

If you work directly in YAML, or you want to know exactly what Home Assistant does under the hood, this section has the technical reference. It lists the field names you use in YAML, their types, and which ones are required.

In YAML, refer to this action by its platform-specific name, such as tts.google_translate_say. Pass the media player as entity_id:

action: tts.google_translate_say
data:
  entity_id: media_player.living_room
  message: "May the force be with you."

This speaks a message on media_player.living_room using the Google Translate platform. To play on every media player, set entity_id to all.

Options in YAML

The options setting can include preferred audio settings, along with any other settings the platform supports, such as voice or speed. Check the documentation of your text-to-speech platform for the settings it accepts.

Good to know

• This action takes the media player as an entity_id value rather than a target.
• Caching stores the spoken result so the same message plays faster next time. For more details, see the cache section.
• If a media player cannot play the audio format a platform produces, set preferred audio settings in options to convert it.

Try it yourself

Ready to test this? Open Developer tools > Actions, search for this action, fill in the fields, and select Perform action. You see what happens on your actual entitiesAn entity represents a sensor, actor, or function in Home Assistant. Entities are used to monitor physical properties or to control other entities. An entity is usually part of a device or a service. [Learn more] without writing a line of YAML.

Still stuck?

The Home Assistant community is quick to help: join Discord for real-time chat, post on the community forum with the action you’re calling and what you expected to happen, or share on our subreddit /r/homeassistant.

Related actions

These actions work well alongside this one:

• Speak: Speaks a message on a media player using text-to-speech.

• Clear TTS cache: Removes all cached text-to-speech files and clears the memory.