How Can I Use A Different Voice for Amazon Polly

Question

Hi, I'm not sure if this is where I can post my question, so I apologize if it's not the right place.

I am tryiing to figure out how I can use the "Stephen" voice for Amazon Polly, in Home Assistant.  Looking at my 1 section of code below,  it works fine.  Then if I try to add the voice option (second section of code), I get an error.

```
data:
  cache: true
  message: >-
    "Hi, it's me Kyle! How can I help?"
  entity_id: media_player.colton_s_echo_show
action: tts.amazon_polly_say
```
When I add the voice options:
```
data:
  message: >-
    "Hi, it's me Polly! How can I help?"
  entity_id: media_player.colton_s_echo_show
  cache: true
  options:
    voice: Stephen
    engine: generative
language: en-US
action: tts.amazon_polly_say
```
Is there somewhere in my AWS account or Amazon Developer account that I need to activate "Stephen"?

coltonyyz · Accepted Answer

Nevermind!  I figured it out.  In case someone else has this question, the answer is - set it up in your configuration.yaml file. Here's what I have in mine:
```
  - platform: amazon_polly
    aws_access_key_id: !secret aws_keyID
    aws_secret_access_key: !secret aws_accesskey
    voice: Stephen
    engine: generative
```

coltonyyz · Answer

I edited my second snippet code. I need "Stephen" from the generative engine, from en-US.

re:Post Agent · Answer

To use a different voice like "Stephen" for Amazon Polly in Home Assistant, you're on the right track with your code modification. However, there are a few things to consider:

1. Voice availability: Make sure the "Stephen" voice is available in your region. Stephen is a Neural voice with an English (British) accent.

2. Correct syntax: Your second code snippet is close, but needs a slight adjustment. The 'options' should be at the same level as 'cache', 'message', and 'entity_id'. Try this format:

```yaml
data:
  cache: true
  message: "Hi, it's me Polly! How can I help?"
  entity_id: media_player.colton_s_echo_show
  options:
    voice: Stephen
    engine: neural
language: en-GB
action: tts.amazon_polly_say
```

3. Engine type: Stephen is a Neural voice, so use 'neural' instead of 'generative' for the engine.

4. AWS account setup: Ensure that your AWS account is properly set up and has the necessary permissions to use Amazon Polly. You don't need to specifically activate individual voices in your AWS or Amazon Developer account.

5. Home Assistant configuration: Make sure your Home Assistant is correctly configured to use Amazon Polly, including the right AWS credentials.

If you're still encountering issues after making these adjustments, check the Home Assistant logs for more detailed error messages. This can help pinpoint if there's a problem with permissions, voice availability, or configuration.

Remember, you can always test different voices directly in the Amazon Polly console to ensure they work before implementing them in Home Assistant.  
**Sources**  
[How Amazon Polly works - Amazon Polly](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/polly/latest/dg/how-text-to-speech-works.html)  
[Listening to voices - Amazon Polly](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/polly/latest/dg/listen-to-voices.html)  
[Voices in Amazon Polly - Amazon Polly](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/polly/latest/dg/voices-in-polly.html)  
[Available voices - Amazon Polly](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/polly/latest/dg/available-voices.html)

How Can I Use A Different Voice for Amazon Polly

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