Opportunities › Local voice control hubs for smart homes › Proposed app
Hearth Relay
Set up and manage local voice satellites for Home Assistant, no cloud needed
- Score
- 27
- confidence 38
- Evidence
- 4
- items on the page
- Rivals
- 2
- named in sources
- First version
- 35 d
- estimate
- Type
- Mobile app
- PWA: installs on iPhone and Android
- Market since
- 2023
- Emerging market · AI estimate
ScreensConcept
Mobile app: Users check and manage home automation satellites and sensors on their phone while moving through their house, needing quick status checks and room-by-room control. Sample screens on a phone, in the proposed brand. Their numbers are sample data.
New satellite
Step 3 of 5
- DeviceSpare speaker
- Wi-FiJoined
- Home AssistantFound
- Wake wordTesting
- RoomKitchen
About this appAI proposal
Hearth Relay is a web app for people who run Home Assistant and want voice control that stays in the house. It guides you through turning a spare speaker or small board into a room satellite, then lets you manage every satellite from your phone.
Each room gets a voice endpoint, multi-room audio, sensor readings and a Bluetooth proxy, all managed from one screen. Setup is a checklist with plain error messages instead of forum threads and command lines.
It differs from cloud assistants because audio is not sent to a vendor. It differs from doing it by hand because setup, updates and health checks live in one place. It works beside Home Assistant and does not replace it.
- Tagline
- Voice for your home that stays in your home.
- Voice
- CalmPlainTrustworthy
- Why this name
- A hearth is the warm centre of a home, and a relay passes signals between rooms. Together: a home hub that stays private.
In the first version
Members say which features they would use. It tells PWAS what people want; it changes no score.
Guided satellite setup
A step-by-step checklist to prepare a supported speaker or board, join Wi-Fi and pair with your Home Assistant, with a plain-language fix for each failure.
No member yet
Room map of satellites
See every satellite by room: online state, last wake word heard, firmware version and signal strength.
No member yet
Multi-room audio groups
Group rooms into zones, set volume per room and send music or announcements to a whole zone.
No member yet
Bluetooth proxy status
Check which satellites extend Bluetooth range, which devices they see and where coverage has gaps.
No member yet
Brand identityAI proposal
Check the name against trademark registers before using it.
Palette
#C2512DEmber · primary#F7F1E8Oat · surface#26221FCharcoal · text#4F6B4AMoss · accent, success#E3D5BFSand · secondary surface
Typography
Aa
Hearth Relay
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 0123456789
Voice for your home that stays in your home.
PricingAI proposal
The material gives no competitor prices. These tiers are a starting point to test, not based on market data.
Free
Free
- Up to 2 satellites
- Guided setup
- Privacy check
Home
$4 a month
- Up to 10 satellites
- Multi-room audio groups
- Update and rollback
- Voice test history
Home Plus
$40 a year
- Everything in Home
- Unlimited satellites
- Priority support
Would you pay Home Plus · $40 a year?
Your answer tells PWAS which prices people accept. It changes no score.
No answers yet.
What it could be worthEstimate
What a software business making this much sells for today, from real deals. Pick a monthly revenue.
If it makes
Worth about
$194,000
Sale range $132,000 to $263,000
$120,000 a year in revenue
From 87 software businesses listed and sold on Empire Flippers in the last year, revenue vetted by the broker: they sell for about 19× their monthly revenue, most between 13× and 26×.
Measured on profit, the middle deal is 32× monthly net profit: about 2.7 years of profit.
An estimate, not an offer or financial advice. A real price depends on profit, growth, churn, how much of the work is the owner's, and the buyer.
How it would growAI proposal
How the product would reach new customers through its own use, and how the first ones would be found. A plan to test, not a result.
- Built-in loop
- No loop in the product. It is used inside one home and produces nothing that others see. Growth would come from community posts, setup guides and word of mouth among Home Assistant users.
- Do they become customers?
- People reached are the same hobbyists who would pay. What would have to be tested: whether free-tier users with 2 satellites upgrade once they add more rooms.
- First customers
- Home Assistant hobbyists with three or more rooms who already tried a local voice setup and gave up or want easier upkeep.
- Where to reach them
- Home Assistant forums: Post a setup walkthrough and ask for beta testers among people running voice satellites.
- Reddit smart home communities: Share a short demo of the privacy check and room map, and invite waitlist signups.
- GitHub project discussions: Offer help to users stuck on setup and link the guided checklist where it fits the project's rules.
- First milestone
- Twenty beta users set up a satellite, and five of them pay for the Home tier within 60 days.
Why people already pay for this
- VerifiedGitHub repository gained 403 stars in 76 days
- Public claimTurns Echo Dot (2nd gen) hardware into a local voice control device without cloud dependency
- Public claimProvides multiple smart home capabilities: voice satellite, multi-room media, sensor data, and Bluetooth proxy
- AI inferenceProject has 403 stars and 22 forks on GitHub, indicating community interest
Tech stack
Every proposal builds on the same PWA base, installable from the browser on any phone or computer. Dashed boxes are what this app adds.
- AppNext.js and TypeScript
- PWAManifest and service worker
- UITailwind CSS
- Data and authSupabase Postgres
- PaymentsStripe
- EmailResend
- HostingVercel
- This app · Local bridgeSmall add-on that runs inside the home networkA web page on the internet cannot reach local devices; the add-on relays status and commands so no audio leaves the home.
- This app · Home Assistant linkHome Assistant API and Wyoming-style satellite protocolNeeded to pair satellites, read entities and run voice pipelines already configured by the user.
RisksAI inference
- TechnicalSupporting repurposed speakers means flashing or modifying hardware that varies by model. Setup may fail or damage devices, and a web app cannot flash hardware directly.
- CommercialThe audience is hobbyists who like free open-source tools. Willingness to pay for a management layer is unproven; the evidence shows GitHub interest only.
- PlatformHome Assistant may add its own satellite management, which would remove much of the reason to buy this.
- Intellectual propertyBuilding on an open-source project and modifying third-party hardware raises licence and warranty questions that need review.
- TechnicalA local bridge adds an install step for a product pitched as easy, and cloud syncing can weaken the privacy promise if not designed carefully.
Everything marked AI proposal or AI inference was written by a model from the evidence on the opportunity page. The proposed name must be checked against trademark registers before it is used.