The little smart home platform that could

Is HA not already the mainstream option for privacy and user control? Maybe I just live in a bubble, but it seems like it's already the go-to if you care about those things.

I run it in a docker container and it works great.

To become mainstream the install process for a fully featured setup needs massive work.

I like the idea of Home Assistant. I just can't be arsed to set it up.

Can't wait to ditch Google Home. Nothing to do with their warmongering. Just hate that the assistant is such a dumb bitch.

Thankfully someone is going to make a localish smart speaker.

I've dabbled a little with it, but I really want something that's as easy to use & set up as the commercial offerings like Google Home and Amazon Echo. I want to have an interface where I can connect my light bulbs, and have little hockey pucks that will listen for a wake word and do what I ask of it, and play my music. I also want to be able to get under the covers and do something that solves an odd problem that might come up.

I'm very hopeful for the project and I do think it will get there eventually.

That could what?? 🥺

They have the 'Nabu Casa' entity, which I thought was doing well. Last I heard, all their subscriptions were doing well, as were the dedicated devices they sell. Don't see them doing anything but accelerating growth as interest in this space, availability of useful devices grows.

I had it briefly up and running and can only say... it's a bear, at least if you are trying to use it as a drop-in replacement with existing hardware. I'm sure I'll go back and sort it out at some point, but it left me just feeling tired and frustrated even when I had it doing most of what I wanted.

If you were thoughtful about hardware from the ground up, maybe it would be more straightforward, but I tried getting it running on just an old workstation with ubuntu installed on it that I use for very basic stuff like syncthing and it was just painful. Mix of Kasa/Wyze/Philips devices that are just what I've somehow collected over time.

It would be nice to see better first-class add-on support. I found myself needing to SSH into a VM to get stuff into it, and even then it was twitchy in all the wrong ways. Would also be nice to see better support for the containerized version, because that's so much easier to distribute and execute compared to a VM. Next time I'll probably just try to do it all with docker and see if it hurts less, since I don't think any addons I was using were critical to begin with.

That said, if you're doing HA, get a dedicated piece of hardware for it. I suspect it vastly simplifies things.

I wish it had better SSO integration with keycloak

I hope it won't go closed source

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Home Assistant is known for its unmatched power and flexibility, but so far the platform, which has an estimated one million users, has struggled to reach the mainstream.

The foundation will also advocate for the development of “better” smart home products, says Schoutsen, “Devices with local APIs and that are built sustainably.

The launch of the for-profit Nabu Casa five years ago provided a revenue stream for Home Assistant through an optional cloud computing service that now supports 33 full-time employees.

Nabu Casa will continue as a for-profit entity running the cloud and selling Home Assistant hardware and will operate as a commercial partner of the foundation.

“Our articles state ‘There will be no direct distribution to members in return for activities performed for the association or as any other form of gratuity in any kind,’’’ he says.

In the meantime, Matter is also providing other platforms — such as Aqara, Homey, and Hubitat — the tools to expand and grow into more viable alternatives to big tech in the smart home.

The original article contains 1,317 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 87%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Bit of a detour but Companies need to realise that AI needs to work FAST and have access to ALL the periphery that is available to the user to effectively put itself in our situation. This requires insane trust. This and the fastness aspect requires AIs to work offline only.

I'm not sure "Open Home Foundation" was the best name to give a privacy focused advocacy program. It kind of sounds like the opposite.

How’s HA compare to Hubitat? I like the offlineness of hub, but I’m not a programmer and setting a lot of stuff up often feels like a chore.

Uh oh...