The Echo Wall Clock normally needs an Echo nearby to work. A Home Assistant community member has now posted a custom integration that replaces the Echo with Home Assistant, so the clock shows Assist timers on its LED ring with no Alexa or Amazon cloud in the path. Here is what it does, what it needs, and what to check before you try it.
What was announced
According to the forum post, the developer reverse-engineered the clock’s Bluetooth protocol (with help from Claude Code) and built two things: a Home Assistant integration called Second Hand, and a plugin for Kiosk Satellite. The author says nothing on the clock is modified, and everything is local.
The clock behaves as it did with an Echo. The ring lights when a timer starts, counts down, and pulses when time is up. Pause, resume, cancel and add time all follow, and several timers can show at once. Time is re-synced on connect and every half hour, so daylight saving and time zone changes are picked up.
- You choose which Assist voice assistants and timer.* helpers each clock displays. Nothing shows by default.
- It reconnects on its own if the clock loses power or leaves range, and restores running timers.
- It adds three entities: a Connected binary sensor, a Timers sensor other automations can read, and a Sync time button.
- A simulator is included, so you can see the display without owning a clock.
What to check before you try it
The requirements are specific, and this is where most people will get stuck.
- Home Assistant 2026.10.0 or newer.
- A Bluetooth adapter on the HA host that supports Bluetooth Classic, within about 10 m of the clock. ESPHome and Shelly proxies are BLE-only, so they will not work. That matches Home Assistant’s own docs, which say the built-in Bluetooth integration covers BLE, not Classic.
- Container installs need host networking and the host’s /run/dbus mounted into the container.
- One controller at a time. Pairing the clock to Home Assistant disconnects it from an Echo. If you still want it on Alexa, this is a one-or-the-other choice.
Testing is thin. The developer has only run it on Home Assistant Container on a Raspberry Pi 3B with one clock. Home Assistant OS, Supervised, multiple voice satellites and multi-day runs are all untested. We have not used it ourselves, so treat it as an early community project.
Setup, as described by the developer
Add the project’s GitHub repository to HACS as a custom repository (type Integration), download it, and restart Home Assistant. Then go to Settings > Devices & services > Add integration > Second Hand, name it and pick your Bluetooth adapter. Hold the blue pairing button on the back of the clock (up to 10 seconds) until the front light pulses orange, then select Submit. Finally, pick the voice assistants and timer helpers to show.
The first connection after pairing often fails. The developer says it keeps retrying, so give it a minute or two before assuming something is broken.
What it means for an installed system
This is a Bluetooth device, so it sits outside the Zigbee versus Matter question. It is also a custom integration installed through HACS, not something certified under Works with Home Assistant, so updates and long-term support depend on one volunteer. That is fine for a wall clock, and we would not hang anything critical on it.
- Already own a clock and an Echo you no longer want? This is the first route we have seen to keep the clock useful without Amazon.
- On a VM or a host with no Classic Bluetooth? Plan for a USB adapter, and keep it away from USB 3 ports, which Home Assistant’s docs flag for 2.4 GHz interference.
- Not bought a clock yet? Wait for reports from setups other than a Pi 3B before buying one for this purpose.
- Before any Home Assistant update that touches Bluetooth, expect to retest pairing, since this relies on host-level access.
It is a neat, narrow project: a locked-down gadget gets a local life. If you try it, the developer is asking for reports on other setups, and the issue tracker is the place for bugs.