Sophia installed but not working on my Third Reality speaker

Ok. Please note, Sophia doesn't do wake word detection.

Do you know what your wake word is? If so, say the wake word, your smart speaker should ding letting you know it's listening. Then say "version check".

Let me know what happens and I'll be able to assist further.

It isn't saying anything in response to "version check," although it does chime for the wake word. Nothing happens after that.

Ok, that makes this easier. It means Sophia isn't configured correctly.

Do you have both the app and integration installed? Did you visit the Settings -> Voice Assistants menu of Home Assistant and setup Sophia as the default voice assistant?

Please revisit the install docs at: https://nlu.to/ha/docs/install

Make sure you follow all the steps, and let me know how it goes. I'm here to help.

I think I have both app and integration installed. The integration page shows it there, and so does the left column menu. I have selected Sophia as the default voice assistant. Now, in the voice assistants panel, if I click on Sophia, I notice that the last entry, "text to speech" had nothing set. I changed it to "piper" which doesn't seem to have solved anything.

There's a few things you can check.

First, visit the Settings -> Apps menu of Home Assistant, open up Sophia NLU app and click the Log button. Does it say "Wyoming server started, listening for connections on IP_ADDRESS:10520..."? Rust is very strict, so sometimes it can't load your configuration.yaml file due to a duplicate key or similar.

Next, visit the Settings -> Voice Assistant menu of Home Assistant and double check Sophia is the default conversation agent.

There's an option in that menu to send a text message into the conversation agent, so do that. Send any message you'd like into Sophia such as "turn the ktichen lights on" or whatever.

Once sent, visit the localhost web interface at http://YOUR_HA_IP:10520/, goto the Log menu and see if that message showed up in the logs.

Honestly, I can't tell what's wrong from here. Sophia doesn't connect to the internet, so I can't ping your install and pull diagnostics or anything.

If you can't get it working, what I would suggest is letting Claude take a look. You'll need to ask Claude how as I don't know myself, but I know many of my users have Claude directly looking at their Home Assistant devices as I get reports from them. If you can't get it working with the above, let Claude take a look at your setup, and it should be able to figure it out.

Let me know how it goes.

The first log entry you asked for says, "Wyoming server started, listening for connections on 172.30.33.2:10520..."

Which is not any ip used in our house. Ours all start with 168. Is this the problem? Is there any way for me to change this ip?

The second log you mention does something strange. When I speak a request, it does this. "2026-10-08 02:43:25] text: turn on the lights intent HassRespond: response: pardon me, my lord, could you rephrase your request? "

only it doesn't speak this aloud. If I hadn't looked at the log, I wouldn't have known anything happened. When I type the request, it does what I ask, but doesn't make any log entry.

(I really appreciate the time you are taking with me. Getting this working is important to me.)

Good news: that log entry means Sophia is working and your speaker is reaching it. And no, that IP address (172.30.33.2) is normal. Home Assistant uses it internally for apps. You don't need to change it.

What's missing is the speaking part. Sophia works out the answer as text, and then Home Assistant needs a text-to-speech service (Piper) to say it out loud. Setting Piper was the right move. Let's make sure it's all connected:

1. Go to Settings → Apps and check that Piper is installed and started. If it isn't there, install it and press Start.
2. Go to Settings → Devices & services, then open your Third Reality speaker. Find the Assistant setting and make sure it's set to your Sophia assistant, not "Preferred."
3. Go to Settings → Voice assistants → Sophia, click the three dots, and choose Debug. Talk to your speaker, then tell me what shows up on that page.

One more thing: that "pardon me, my lord" reply was Sophia doing what it's designed to do. Sophia won't accept universal commands that affect every device in the home. You need to give it an area or a floor. If you say "turn on the lights," it plays dumb and pretends it doesn't understand. Say "turn on the kitchen lights" and it will understand.

This is a safety feature. I've had several emails from people who accidentally woke their families at 2am while testing Sophia, because it turned on every light in the house. In an upcoming update, Sophia will use the area your smart speaker is in whenever you say something general like "turn on the lights."

If all else fails, let Claude take a look at your setup

I can't see inside your Home Assistant from here, but Claude can, if you give it permission. Many Sophia users do this and it works well. Claude can read your voice assistant settings, check your speaker and Piper, and often find what's wrong. Here is how to set it up:

1. You'll need a Claude account at claude.ai. The free one is fine to start.
2. Install the "Home Assistant MCP Server" (called ha-mcp). It's a free community project. The full instructions are here: https://github.com/homeassistant-ai/ha-mcp
3. In Home Assistant, go to Settings → Apps and install Home Assistant MCP Server, then press Start. (If you can't find it, the page above explains how to add it.)
4. Copy the connection link the app gives you. It's a long web address with a secret code in it. Keep it private, because anyone with that link can control your home.
5. Add that link to Claude, following the steps on that page for the Claude app you use, such as Claude Desktop.
6. Ask Claude: "Can you see my Home Assistant?" If it says yes, tell it what's wrong, for example: "My Sophia voice assistant understands me but my Third Reality speaker doesn't speak." Claude can then look at your setup and walk you through the fix.

Let me know how it goes.

Just thought I'd check in and follow up with this. How are things? Did you manage to get things working or are you still having issues?

Warm regards, Matt

Thanks for checking, Matt. I haven't worked through your last set of suggestions yet. Brain work is exhausting for me, so I have to rest up today. I'll try again next time I'm awake. ;)