Assist - default sentences


Home Assistant comes with built-in sentences contributed by the community for dozens of languages.

These sentences allow you, for example, to:

  • Turn entities on and off
    • “turn on the living room light”
    • “turn off ceiling fan”
    • “turn on the TV”
    • “lock all the doors”
    • “open the main door”
  • Open, close covers, or ask about their state
    • “Close the garage door”
    • “Open kitchen window”
    • “Which curtains are closed”
    • “Set bedroom curtain to 50%”
  • Set the brightness and color of lights
    • “Change kitchen lights brightness to 50%”
    • “Set bed light to green”
  • Ask about the weather
  • Add items to a list
    • “Add bread to my shopping list”
    • “Add decorating christmas tree to my december chores list”
  • Get information about a state
    • “What is the amount of energy from solar production?”
    • “what is the heat pump co2 sensor’s co2 level?”
    • “what is the battery level of my phone?”
  • Run a script
    • “Run stealth mode script”
  • Activate a scene
    • “Activate dinner scence”
    • “Turn kitchen dinner scene on”
  • Inquire about people (that have device tracking activated in Home Assistant)
    • “How many people are in the kitchen”
    • “Who is in the garage”
    • “Where is Anne”
  • Control the media player
    • “next item on TV”
    • “skip song on the TV”
    • “skip track on the TV”
    • “skip to the next song on the TV”
    • “pause TV”
    • “TV pause”
    • “unpause TV”
    • “TV unpause”
    • “resume TV”
    • “set TV volume to 90 percent”
    • “change the TV volume to 90”
    • “turn TV volume down to 90 percent”
  • Control the vacuum
    • “return rover to base”
    • “start rover”
  • Abort wake word
    • “Nevermind”: If you triggered the wake word by mistake and want to stop Home Assistant from listening

The sentences only work, if the 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]
are available and are named exactly the way you call them. Check the troubleshooting section to see common errors when asking for the weather forecast.

In addition to individual 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]
, commands can target areas:

  • “turn on all lights in the living room”
  • “open windows in the kitchen”
  • “change office brightness to 50%”
  • “set bedroom lights to green”

Entity aliases are also matched so that multiple names can be used, even in different languages.

You can extend the built-in sentences or add your own to trigger any action in Home Assistant.

View existing sentences

The list of supported sentences is constantly being updated for each language. There are so many possible sentences that they cannot be all listed here. To find out what works in your language, follow these steps.

Note: If the voice assistant doesn’t understand you, you may need to rephrase your sentence a bit. Or check if the entityAn 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]
or areaAn area in Home Assistant is a logical grouping of devices and entities that are meant to match areas (or rooms) in the physical world: your home. For example, the living room area groups devices and entities in your living room. name is correct for your environment.

  1. Take a look at the test sentences:

    • On GitHub, in the tests folder, open the subfolder for your language.

    • Look through the test files to see the example sentences that have been tested.

    • The second part of the file name shows the intentIntent is a term used with voice assistants. The intent is what Home Assistant thinks you want it to do when it extracts a command from your voice or text utterance.
      [Learn more]
      , the first part shows the domainEach integration in Home Assistant has a unique identifier: The domain. It is often shown as the first part (before the dot) of entity IDs. . For some domainsEach integration in Home Assistant has a unique identifier: The domain. It is often shown as the first part (before the dot) of entity IDs. , such as covers, fans, and light, there are specific sentences. The other domainsEach integration in Home Assistant has a unique identifier: The domain. It is often shown as the first part (before the dot) of entity IDs. are covered by the generic homeassistant_.

      Example of a folder of assistant sentence test files

    • The screenshot below shows sentences used to test the command to turn on the lights. Note that Living room here is just a place holder. It could be any areaAn area in Home Assistant is a logical grouping of devices and entities that are meant to match areas (or rooms) in the physical world: your home. For example, the living room area groups devices and entities in your living room. that you have in your home.

      Example of a set of test sentences

  2. View the sentence definition for the tests:

    • On GitHub, in the sentences folder, open the subfolder for your language.

    • Open the file of interest.

      Sentences definition for turning on the light

  3. View the sentence definition for your language.

  4. View the response definition

Related topics