I Built My Family a Voice Assistant That Never Touches the Cloud
What this is: the implementation guide for a LAN-only family voice assistant. A wall tablet runs a thin browser client. A small Python server on a Windows box does voice activity detection, streaming speech to text, and GPU text to speech. The brain is a 9-billion-parameter local model served by llama.cpp with a deliberately small tool belt. No cloud speech service, no cloud brain, no monthly fee. Environment used here: Windows 11 box with RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB cards, Python 3.11, an old x86 tablet running a Chromium-based OS as the kiosk. The entire voice chain runs on one card (GPU 0); the second card sits idle by design. Versions are pinned in section 2. Substitute your own hardware; the pipeline steps do not change. ...