Gazetteer Matcher

Published 2026-08-31

Starting in Home Assistant 2026.9, the built-in English voice commands will become more flexible and powerful thanks to the gazetteer matcher.

Existing voice commands in Home Assistant are based on templates like turn on the lights in {area}. These templates are fast to process and work well across many different languages, but fail when encountering unexpected words or phrasings. Although it can be frustrating, this is partially by design: it's better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing with your smart home.

The gazetteer matcher has light fuzzy name matching:

• "turn on the office lump" works for an entity named "Office Lamp"
• "are any lights on in Sam's room?" works for an area named "Sam Bedroom"

Up to 2 actions or targets are supported:

• "turn on the lights and open the curtains" (2 actions, 2 targets)
• "turn off the kitchen and bedroom lights" (1 action, 2 targets)
• "turn on the TV and set its volume to 50%" (2 actions, 1 target)

Lastly, you can follow up on a command or question:

• "turn on the overhead light" followed by "turn it off"
• "is the front door locked?" followed by "lock it"

This only works for English for now, but we hope to extend it to other languages in the future!