Intercom

Kiosks on the same network can talk to each other. Pick a kiosk from the kiosk menu and it rings there, or announce to every kiosk at once. Each kiosk decides how it answers: ring, answer on its own after a chime, or not at all. Voice travels straight between the two kiosks through a dedicated intercom listener. Older kiosks use their remote admin port. No server and no Home Assistant sit in the path, and Home Assistant sees the state through ESPHome.

Configure it under Settings, Intercom on the kiosk, or the Intercom tab in the remote admin. Every kiosk on the intercom needs Remote management and Find other kiosks on (under Settings, Device, Remote Administration). Kiosks find and reach each other through the remote admin, the same way Fleet Management does.

Setup

1. Turn on Enable intercom. The kiosk makes an Intercom key the first time.
2. Give every other kiosk the same key. In a fleet the leader syncs it as a credential and nothing needs typing. Outside a fleet, copy the key from the box and paste it on the other kiosk through Change key.
3. The Kiosks list includes discovered kiosks and saved fleet members with a status word. A kiosk reads Ready once its admin endpoint answers with intercom on, the same key and matching encryption settings. Saved fleet members remain listed and are probed even when their mDNS advertisements are missing.

Status	Meaning
Ready	The intercom is on there with the same key.
Intercom off	The kiosk is on the network but its intercom is off, or it runs a version without one.
Different key	Its intercom is on with another key. Paste this kiosk's key there, or the other way around.
Encryption mismatch	The kiosks have different encryption settings. Enable Encrypt communications on both kiosks for encrypted calls.
Do not disturb	It is on the intercom but refuses calls right now.
Unreachable	The kiosk is discovered or saved in the fleet but its admin port does not answer from here. It remains listed so later probes can detect its return.
Offline	The kiosk is no longer discovered and is not in the saved fleet directory.

Change key opens a dialog to paste a key from another kiosk or Regenerate a fresh one. A new key cuts this kiosk off from the others until they get it too.

Placing a call

The Intercom entry in the kiosk menu opens the Call a kiosk screen, full screen like the app launcher: Announce to all at the top, then every kiosk as a row with its name and status. A tap on a Ready kiosk calls it. Kiosks with the intercom off, on Do not disturb, on another key or offline stay on the list dimmed with the reason and take no tap. The X, back or HOME closes the screen, and so does the screensaver.

The call takes the whole screen: the kiosk's name, Calling and Cancel. Nothing plays until the other side answers. Busy, Do not disturb, no answer and a different key end the call with one line on the screen.

The Open Call a kiosk gesture action opens the same screen, and Call a kiosk rings one kiosk picked when the gesture was set up. Unchecking Intercom under Device > User Interface > Drawer menu items takes the entry out of the menu altogether. The restricted menu has its own Intercom switch under Kiosk Mode, Allowed Actions, so a wall panel can keep the entry off while a gesture still opens the screen.

A call coming in

Answer mode	What happens
Ring	The ring sound plays every four seconds with Decline and Answer on screen for as long as Ring for says. Then the call counts as missed and a toast offers Call back.
Answer automatically	One chime, a three second countdown with Decline on screen, then the call opens on its own. The call screen always shows: nobody is listened to without the kiosk saying who is there.
Do not disturb	Nothing rings. The caller sees Do not disturb.

A kiosk in Lockdown Mode answers as Do not disturb. A kiosk already in a call answers Busy. A call wakes a dark screen and draws over the screensaver, which picks up where it was once the call ends.

The Ring sound is a built-in telephone ring by default, or a file from the same sounds folder as the notification sound, put there with the Add a sound row on the device or the remote admin. Either plays at the notification volume.

In a call

Talk mode	How it works
Push to talk	The default. One wide Hold to talk button and End. Held, this kiosk sends and the far kiosk hears you. Released, this kiosk listens. It never needs echo cancellation to work, so it is the safe choice on every device.
Hands free	The microphone stays open for the whole call with a Mute button. It leans on the kiosk's echo canceller, the same one the wake word listens through. Sound near this kiosk can come through quieter while the other side talks, more so at a high intercom volume. If the other kiosk hears itself back, use push to talk.

Each kiosk picks its own talk mode. Intercom volume under Screen & Audio, beside the media and assistant volumes, is the share of the master volume the other kiosk's voice and announcements play at, 60% by default. Hands free calls work better at a lower intercom volume: the other side's voice leaves less echo for this kiosk to remove.

During a call the kiosk holds the screensaver, the dashboard rotation and the return to home timer the way a voice turn does, ducks the music the same way and pauses wake word detection, so neither voice triggers the assistant. End on either side closes both. The screen shows the call's length for ten seconds with Call again and Close.

Maximum call duration ends a live call or announcement after 1 to 60 minutes, Unlimited by default. Each kiosk counts on its own, so the shorter limit ends the call for both, and the call screen reads Maximum call duration reached.

Hang up call when pressing this button picks a hardware button that ends the call: Volume up, Volume down, Mute or Help. It ends a call being placed, a live call and either end of an announcement. Outside a call the button keeps its usual job. It is a pick of this device's hardware, so Fleet Management never syncs it.

Hang up button while ringing shows once a button is picked and sets what the button does while a call rings here: Accept answers the call, Decline declines it and Ignore, the default, leaves the button its usual job until the call is live. With Accept, a single button handles the whole call: press to answer, press again to hang up. A button only works when Android sees it: adb shell getevent -l lists the keys a device reports, and a key the device's key layout leaves unmapped never reaches the app.

Voice is raw 16 kHz audio over one WebSocket per call, about 256 kbit/s each way on the local network, and reaches the other kiosk in roughly a quarter of a second.

Announce to all

Announce to all is one way: every Ready kiosk gets your voice at once, whatever its own talk mode, and nothing comes back. With push to talk you hold, speak and let go, and the line under the name says who hears you. With hands free the microphone stays open, with Mute, until Done. Kiosks on Do not disturb, with Accept announcements off or in a call are skipped and the screen names who is getting it.

On the receiving kiosks the screen says who is announcing. The ring plays once before the voice. Reply calls the sender back as a normal call, Dismiss closes it, and it also closes on its own a few seconds after the sender is done. Receivers do not hear each other: an announcement is not a group call.

Accept announcements under Answer, on by default, is the receiver's switch. Off, the kiosk refuses Announce to all. Spoken announcements from Home Assistant are a feature of their own under ESPHome, Announcements, and need no other kiosk.

The remote admin

The Intercom tab carries the same settings and the Kiosks card, without Call buttons. While a call is live a card at the top names the other kiosk with the length and End call. The remote admin never answers a call: a browser only opens the microphone on a secure origin, and the remote admin is plain http. The Overview gets a Do not disturb tile that flips the answer mode and back.

Home Assistant

The ESPHome device carries an Intercom enabled switch, and with the intercom on five more entities.

Entity	Type	Values
Intercom	text sensor	idle, calling, ringing, in_call, broadcasting, listening, missed. Missed holds for a minute after a call nobody answered, so an automation can flash a light when the bedroom does not pick up.
Intercom kiosk	text sensor	The other kiosk's name during a call and the caller's during the minute of missed, else empty.
Intercom do not disturb	switch	The answer mode's Do not disturb as a switch.
Intercom answer mode	select	Ring, Answer automatically, Do not disturb.
Intercom volume	number	0 to 100%, the same slider as Intercom volume under Screen & Audio. A change during a call takes effect right away.

ESPHome actions put a call through from an automation or a dashboard button. esphome.<node name>_intercom_call rings another kiosk from this one, named by its kiosk argument, the kiosk's name as the Kiosks card lists it, any case, or its IP address. The call then runs the way one placed from the kiosk menu does: this kiosk's Talk mode, the other kiosk's Answer mode, and the Intercom sensor follows it. The action answers with the id and kiosk it rang through response_variable, and reports an error when the intercom is off here, no kiosk goes by that name, this kiosk is already in a call or the other kiosk refused with its reason (off, on another key, Do not disturb or busy). esphome.<node name>_intercom_hangup ends the call, cancels one still ringing or closes an announcement, and reports an error when there is none. esphome.<node name>_intercom_answer and esphome.<node name>_intercom_decline answer or decline the call ringing on this kiosk, the same as its on-screen buttons, so a kiosk without a screen can be picked up from Home Assistant. Both report an error when nothing is ringing.

- action: esphome.kitchen_tablet_intercom_call
  data:
    kiosk: Bedroom

Home Assistant cannot talk on a call: the kiosks hold the microphones. To speak on a kiosk from Home Assistant, use the announce action under ESPHome. On the remote API the same two are intercomCall {kiosk} and intercomHangup.

Automations can follow calls through the esphome.kiosk_satellite_intercom event. Apps on the kiosk itself, like Tasker or MacroDroid, can use Android Broadcasts instead.

Calling by voice

Ask the kiosk you are talking to for a call, like "call the kitchen" or "call the Echo Show 8", and it rings that kiosk. This goes through an LLM conversation agent (Qwen, Gemma, Gemini, Claude, OpenAI or any other agent that can control Home Assistant) and a script that Kiosk Satellite ships as a blueprint, so it works in any language the agent speaks.

The built-in Home Assistant conversation agent does not work for this, since it cannot fill in the script's fields. An LLM agent with Prefer handling commands locally turned on works fine.

Info: The long-lived token under Settings, Home Assistant must belong to a Home Assistant administrator. This applies to every request the script handles, including questions such as "Which kiosks can I call?". Calls started on the kiosk work with any user's token. The kiosk listens for the script over its own Home Assistant connection. Home Assistant only lets administrators fire and follow the events the script runs on.

1. Import the blueprint:

   

2. Create a script from it. It has no settings.

3. Expose the script to Assist under Settings, Voice assistants, Expose.

Name the kiosk the way you think of it: its name, the name its device has in Home Assistant or the area Home Assistant puts it in. "Call the master bedroom" finds the kiosk in the Master Bedroom area. The kiosk checks the other kiosk first, and the agent tells you when it is on Do not disturb, has its intercom off or cannot be reached. When the name fits several kiosks, like two kiosks in one room, the agent asks which one, and "which kiosks can I call?" lists them with their areas. The call rings once the agent has finished its answer, so the reply is never cut off. A realtime conversation ends right after its answer instead of waiting out its closing silence.

Wake word detection pauses for the whole call, so the kiosk cannot hear "hang up". To end a call without touching the screen, map claps or Show fingers to the End the intercom call gesture action, or pick a hardware button under Hang up call when pressing this button. The Accept intercom call and Decline intercom call gesture actions answer a ringing call the same way.

The call goes out from the kiosk you are talking to. A request typed into Home Assistant's own chat reaches no kiosk until it names the one that should call, as in "call the kitchen from the bedroom kiosk", which matches the kiosk's device name or ESPHome name.

The script works from automations too. Set caller to the kiosk that should place the call, and the call rings at once:

action: script.kiosk_satellite_intercom
data:
  action: call
  kiosk: Kitchen
  caller: Bedroom
response_variable: result

Fleet Management

The Intercom category syncs like the others. The key travels only as a credential, on by default in new profiles, so a fleet shares one key without anyone typing it. The intercom volume stays out of new profiles like the other volumes. So does the answer mode, so Do not disturb on one kiosk never mutes the rest of the fleet. Add Answer mode back to a profile to share it.

Remote API

The intercom's routes sit in front of the admin login. Every one of them except the identity carries a bearer token signed with the intercom key for that one call, good for a minute and once.

Endpoint	Method	Description
/api/intercom/identity	GET	{id, name, version, enabled, key, dnd, endpoint: {port, tls}}. key is the first eight hex digits of the key's SHA-256, what the status words compare. Public, one probe a second per client.
/api/intercom/call	POST	{call, kind: call or broadcast, from: {id, name, address, port, version, tls}} answers {status}: ringing, auto, listening, busy, dnd, off, 409 with status: tls for incompatible encryption or 403 for another key. Plaintext requests are refused with 426 when encryption is required.
/api/intercom/call/<id>	POST	{action}: answer, decline, missed from the callee, cancel and hangup from the caller.
/api/intercom/audio/<id>	WebSocket	?token= as above. Binary frames are 80 ms of PCM16 mono 16 kHz from the sender's microphone. Text frames: {"type": "talk", "on": true} and {"type": "end"}.

Both pages use the commands intercomStatus, intercomKiosks, intercomCall {id} or {kiosk} (a name or address), intercomBroadcast, intercomHangup, intercomTalk {on}, intercomMute {on}, intercomOpen, intercomSetDnd {on}, intercomSetKey {key} or {regenerate: true} and intercomDismiss. intercomAnswer and intercomDecline are refused over the remote API: only the kiosk screen answers. The WebSocket feed carries an intercom event with the whole status on every change.

Notes

• One call at a time per kiosk. A second caller gets Busy. A broadcast reaching a kiosk in a call skips that kiosk.
• Without the microphone permission a kiosk still takes calls and hears the other side. The screen says it is listening only.
• A dashboard that holds the microphone itself, such as Voice Satellite streaming to Home Assistant for its wake word, is asked to let go for the call and gets it back when the call ends. Voice Satellite 2026.9.7 and later do that. An older one keeps it and the call is listen only, which the screen says. A page that takes the microphone during a call ends the call.
• Voice is not compressed in this version. That keeps every Android the app runs on, Android 7 included, on the same footing.

Encryption

Turn on Encrypt communications under Settings > Intercom > TLS on each participating kiosk. This uses a separate HTTPS and WSS listener without changing Remote Administration. Kiosks discover its port automatically. Changing this setting ends active calls. See TLS encryption for connection behavior, network requirements and certificate management.

Kiosks with different intercom encryption settings show Encryption mismatch and cannot call each other. Enable Encrypt communications on all participating kiosks for encrypted calls. Announce to all skips kiosks with incompatible encryption settings. The app never sends intercom credentials or audio over plaintext when encryption is enabled. Home Assistant announcements that play only on this kiosk keep their existing behavior.