Satellite started listening

The Satellite started listening trigger fires when one or more Assist satellite 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] transition to the listening state. This happens immediately after the wake word is detected and the satellite opens its microphone to capture the voice command.

Use it to automate actions at the moment a voice interaction begins. For example, create an automation to switch on indicator lights that show the satellite is actively listening, to pause media playback so the satellite can hear the command clearly, or to log the time of each voice session for energy-use auditing.

Using this trigger from the user interface

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

To use this trigger in an automation:

1. Go to Settings > Automations & scenes.
2. Open an existing automation, or select Create automation > Create new automation.
3. In the When section, select Add trigger.
4. From the search box, search for and select Satellite started listening.
5. Select Add target and pick the Assist satellite you want to watch. You can also select an area, a floor, a device, or a label, as described in Targets.
6. Under Trigger when, pick Each, First, or All to control how the trigger behaves when multiple satellites are targeted, as described in Behavior.
7. Under For at least, you can set how long the satellite must keep reporting the listening state before the trigger fires. Leave it at zero to fire immediately.
8. Select Save.

Options in the UI

Using this trigger 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 trigger as assist_satellite.started_listening. A basic example looks like this:

trigger: assist_satellite.started_listening
target:
  entity_id: assist_satellite.living_room

This fires every time assist_satellite.living_room starts listening for a voice command.

Options in YAML

YAML sometimes provides additional options for more complex use cases that are not available through the UI.

Targets of the trigger

This trigger requires a target. The target is the object that Home Assistant will watch. You can select a single 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], a device, an area, a floor, or a label as a target, and Home Assistant will watch every matching assist_satellite entity behind that target.

• Entity: one specific assist_satellite entity, such as assist_satellite.living_room.
• Device: every assist_satellite entity that belongs to a device.
• Area: every assist_satellite entity in a room or area.
• Floor: every assist_satellite entity on a floor.
• Label: every assist_satellite entity that shares a label.

You can also select different target types in one trigger. For example, you can add a specific entity and an area as targets in the same trigger to monitor both of them at once.

Behavior with multiple targets

When you target more than one entity (or select an area, floor, or label that contains several), the Trigger when option controls how the trigger responds:

• Each (default): the trigger fires every time any one of the targeted entities transitions. For example, if you monitor three motion sensors in the living room and someone walks past sensor 1, the automation fires. When they walk past sensor 2 a moment later, it fires again. Every individual event counts.
• First: the trigger fires only on the first transition in the targeted group, then waits until all targeted entities have reset before it fires again. For example, if you monitor the same three motion sensors, the automation fires when the first one picks up movement (someone entered the room). The other two firing afterward are ignored, so you get one notification per “someone walked in” event instead of three.
• All: the trigger fires only after the last targeted entity in the group has fired, meaning all of them are now in the expected state. For example, if you monitor the lights in the living room, bedroom, and hallway, the automation fires only once all three have turned off. This is useful for scenarios like “start the robot vacuum only after every light on the floor is off,” so you know the room is truly empty.

Good to know

• This trigger fires as soon as the wake word is confirmed and the satellite enters the Listening state. It does not wait for the voice command to be spoken or processed.
• If a satellite supports streaming wake word detection, it transitions from Idle directly to Listening without an intermediate step.
• If the satellite is already in the Listening state when Home Assistant restarts, the trigger will not fire again until the state cycles back through Idle first.
• Use the For at least option with caution. Listening windows are typically short (a few seconds), so long durations may prevent the trigger from ever firing under normal conditions.
• Satellites that have the Unavailable or Unknown state are skipped in the evaluation of multi-target behavior.

Try it yourself

Ready to test this? Go to Settings > Automations & scenes, create a new automation, and add this trigger. Save the automation, then change the state of the targeted entity to watch the trigger fire 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].

More examples

Real scenarios where this trigger fires in automations and scripts. Copy any example and adapt it to your setup.

Automation: pause media playback when any satellite starts listening to save energy

When a satellite starts listening, this automation pauses active media players in the same area. This helps prevent the satellite from picking up audio from speakers as speech, which reduces failed recognitions, unnecessary retries, and related network and compute use.

• Trigger: Satellite started listening
  • Target: All Assist satellites in the living room (by label)
• Action: Pause media
  • Target: Living room media player

alias: "Pause media when a satellite starts listening"
triggers:
  - trigger: assist_satellite.started_listening
    target:
      label_id: assist_satellites_living_room
actions:
  - action: media_player.media_pause
    target:
      entity_id: media_player.living_room

Still stuck?

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

Related triggers

These triggers work well alongside this one:

• Satellite started processing: Triggers after one or more Assist satellites start processing a voice command.

• Satellite started responding: Triggers after one or more Assist satellites start playing back a response.

• Satellite became idle: Triggers after one or more Assist satellites return to the idle state.