Home Assistant’s hidden AI image generator is way more useful than it sounds

House Assistant features a built-in software for producing photos utilizing AI. AI Activity has been round since 2025, with picture technology added in House Assistant 2025.10, however you should still be utterly unaware of it. As soon as you understand how to make use of it, it may be very helpful.

AI Activity is a constructing block integration

You want different integrations to make use of it

The explanation that you could be not have stumbled throughout the picture technology in House Assistant is that it’s a part of a constructing block integration. The AI Activity integration can’t be immediately added to your House Assistant occasion like normal integrations; it’s a software made obtainable for different integrations to make use of.

There are two principal actions for the AI Activity integration. The ai_task.generate_data motion can use a related LLM to generate data based on a prompt. The ai_task.generate_image motion generates a picture utilizing AI primarily based on the included immediate.

To reap the benefits of these actions, you want to use an integration that helps them. For instance, the OpenAI integration can use these actions to generate knowledge or photos, utilizing OpenAI’s fashions to return textual content or photos primarily based in your directions.

Dimensions (exterior)

4.41″L x 4.41″W x 1.26″H

Weight

12 Ounces

House Assistant Inexperienced is a pre-built hub immediately from the House Assistant group. It is a plug-and-play resolution that comes with all the things you want to arrange House Assistant in your house without having to put in the software program your self. 

Connecting an AI supplier

The principle choices incur API prices

Credit score: Lucas Gouveia / How-To Geek

To make use of picture technology in House Assistant, the best choices are to make use of one of many supported AI integrations. There are a number of integrations that you should utilize. The OpenAI integration lets you use among the same models as ChatGPT uses, though for picture technology, you possibly can’t presently use the flagship GPT Picture 2 mannequin.

The opposite principal possibility is the Google Gemini integration. You should use this to generate photos utilizing Google’s AI fashions. It makes use of the gemini-2.5-flash-preview-image mannequin, which is Nano Banana, moderately than Nano Banana 2 or Nano Banana Professional.

Utilizing both of those integrations will incur API prices, even in case you have a subscription to Gemini or ChatGPT. The prices are typically low for infrequent use, though the precise value depends upon the supplier and mannequin that you simply’re utilizing.

There are methods to make use of native picture technology; a HACS integration lets you generate photos regionally utilizing ComfyUI, however this requires {hardware} that’s highly effective sufficient to deal with the picture technology regionally. The upside is that native picture technology shouldn’t be solely more private, but in addition free.

After you have an integration arrange, you should utilize the ai_task.generate_image motion in your automations to generate photos. It is advisable embrace the immediate because the directions attribute and choose the suitable LLM activity because the entity_id, similar to ai_task.google_ai_task.

What you are able to do with picture technology in House Assistant

It might really be helpful

Producing photos utilizing AI doesn’t look like one thing that might essentially be helpful in your sensible dwelling. Nevertheless, there are many ways in which it may be helpful.

Considered one of my favourite issues I’ve arrange on my iPhone is a widget that displays an image of the current local weather circumstances generated by ChatGPT. The complete factor runs from an iOS shortcut, and it’s an effective way to see what the climate is like at a look. The very best half is that once I journey, the picture is of the present location moderately than my dwelling.

I used the picture technology in House Assistant to arrange an identical factor in House Assistant. Each two hours through the day, an automation checks the present climate, and makes use of Gemini to create a picture depicting the present climate circumstances. If the circumstances haven’t modified, no new picture is generated, to avoid wasting on API prices.

You too can use AI-generated photos to create visible suggestions concerning the state of your sensible dwelling, or to create customized photos for Home Assistnt notifications. If in case you have a wall-mounted dashboard, you possibly can have it show AI-generated photos if you’re not utilizing it, or so as to add graphics and pictures to your calendar which are particular to your upcoming occasions.

Since AI fashions can generate nearly something you need, the actual limits are your creativeness. A picture can typically impart data in a way more digestible approach than a protracted notification.

Displaying generated photos in your dashboards

Writing the output to a Image Card

Producing photos is nice, however by default these simply find yourself within the Media tab of House Assistant. The most effective methods to show them is using a dashboard.

This seems to be barely problematic. The pictures are saved completely so you possibly can at all times discover them within the Media browser. You possibly can’t use the media_source_id to show the photographs in a dashboard, nevertheless. The hyperlink that House Assistant generates comes with a one-hour safety token, which expires.

The dashboard doesn’t use that URL immediately; it makes use of House Assistant’s personal picture proxy as a substitute, so the picture will proceed to show after the safety token has expired. The one situation comes if you restart House Assistant; the template entity loses monitor of which picture it was displaying, so the dashboard will go clean till the subsequent picture is generated.

AI-generated photos can change into a part of your sensible dwelling

Producing customized photos in your sensible dwelling will be very helpful. The pictures are saved by default, so chances are you’ll must do some spring cleansing in case your Home Assistant backups begin to get big. Whilst you do must pay to make use of cloud-based fashions, the prices are pretty low so long as you’re not creating lots of of photos a day.