Introduction and Project Summary

The project aims to develop a privacy-focused, customizable home assistant for tech-savvy users, ensuring all data processing occurs locally or via a user-hosted cloud. It must distinguish between real-time (e.g. what’s the weather today) and non-real-time queries (e.g. how to make bread) and allow users to upload and customize ML models. Key challenges include optimizing model efficiency, maintaining low latency (<5s), and ensuring security. Implementation involves a web-based UI, a compact speaker and microphone, and quantized ML models for query classification and response. Testing will ensure >95% accuracy, privacy compliance, and hardware reliability. The MVP will include essential hardware, a functional UI, and initial models to validate the feasibility of a secure, user-controlled home assistant.