SwitchBot has announced that it’s putting an AI assistant directly into its smart home app that can make managing your SwitchBot devices more streamlined.

Kata (not to be confused with same-name cutesy AI pet SwitchBot also offers) is an LLM-powered assistant that’s designed to let you control devices, build automations, set up products and troubleshoot problems using natural language, rather than jumping around in the app.

You can type a request or talk to it, rather than digging through individual device pages and settings.

For example, SwitchBot says you can ask it to turn off your lights and curtains while adjusting the air conditioner, with a single command. It can also turn a request such as “open the bedroom curtains on weekday mornings” into a supported automation without requiring you to manually configure the trigger and actions.

It’s designed to interpret intent, so a request doesn’t necessarily have to be phrased as a precise smart home command. If you tell Kata that a room is too hot or too dark, for example, it can suggest an appropriate action.

It can also ask for clarification when you haven’t given it enough information. So if you say “turn it on” when you have several similar devices, Kata will ask which one you mean before doing anything.

Kata can also identify a SwitchBot product from an image of its packaging, then provide the relevant setup instructions.

Also, rather than searching through SwitchBot’s manuals and FAQ pages, you can describe the problem to Kata to help you troubleshoot issues.

SwitchBot says Kata can maintain context during an active session too, meaning you shouldn’t have to keep repeating device names or other details while working through a problem.

There is a usage limit though, with SwitchBot currently allowing up to 100 successful AI processes per day, which should be plenty for normal smart home controls.

SwitchBot states it does not extract, store or use voiceprints, while original voice recordings, images and non-anonymized personal information aren't used to train AI models.

Generated responses, image-processing results, device-operation results and related service records can be stored on SwitchBot’s cloud servers, with users able to review, manage and delete them.

SwitchBot isn’t the only smart home company betting that AI should become the way we interact with our devices, of course.

Philips Hue has had an AI assistant in its app for some time, allowing users to describe the lighting they want and, more recently, create automations using natural-language commands.

Hue’s Chinese rival Govee has taken a similar approach with its AI Lighting Bot, which can turn text prompts and images into custom lighting effects.

Security companies are also using AI; Reolink’s AI Video Search lets you search recorded footage using natural language, while its newer ReoNeura system can turn prompts into detection rules, and Ring has added AI Video Descriptions, AI Search and AI-powered alerts that attempt to explain what's happening around your home rather than simply telling you that motion was detected.

There are also the big platform players. Amazon’s Alexa+ is a digital AI assistant for the smart home, with support for more complex, multi-step commands and new tools that allow device makers to expose more of their products to the assistant.

And Google's Gemini for Home is taking the same idea in the Google Home ecosystem, turning Gemini into a conversational interface for controlling and understanding the home.

We’re expecting something similar from Apple soon too, with a revamped AI-charged Siri expected to power a bunch of new smart home tech coming out of Cupertino in the coming months.

Back to SwitchBot, and Kata is available now in version 9.29 or later of the SwitchBot App.