How do you solve the problem of growing a popular smart home platform committed to open-source, open-standard ideals into something bigger that stays true to those ideals? You create a foundation. At least, that\u2019s the approach Home Assistant founder Paulus Schoutsen has chosen.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
This week, Home Assistant<\/a> announced it is now part of the Open Home Foundation<\/a>. The newly formed non-profit will own and govern all of Home Assistant and its related entities. Its creators and inaugural board members \u2014 Schoutsen, Guy Sie, Pascal Vizeli, and J. Nick Koston \u2014 all work on Home Assistant, and the foundation has no other members so far. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n In a press release, the foundation stated its aim is \u201cto fight against surveillance capitalism, and offer a counterbalance to Big Tech influence, in the smart home \u2014 by focusing on privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart home users.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A community-built<\/a>, open-source smart home platform, Home Assistant differs from its major \u201cbig tech\u201d competitors \u2014 such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home, because it offers four things simultaneously: local control of your smart home<\/a> that can be faster and more reliable than the cloud: authority over and access to all your data; compatibility with almost every connected gadget \u2014 regardless of protocol or manufacturer; and the ability to make them work together. While many competitors offer some of these, few offer all.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI want to make it clear what our intentions are to the world: That we\u2019re driven by a higher goal than money. And that we are not for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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. Home Assistant can have a steep learning curve, especially when compared to the relative simplicity of a platform like Alexa or Apple Home. Onboarding devices can be complicated, the UI has lots of room for improvement, and integrations can be hit or miss. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHome Assistant is no one\u2019s first smart home platform,\u201d says Schoutsen. \u201cWhen people outgrow their existing systems and want more advanced control, that\u2019s when they come to Home Assistant.\u201d But he sees that the platform is at a tipping point. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n With the arrival of the industry-backed smart home standard Matter<\/a> (with which Home Assistant is heavily involved), smart home adoption is pushing into the mainstream. Home Assistant wants to stay swimming alongside Apple, Amazon, Samsung, and Google,\u00a0all of which it\u2019s been competing with in the smart home for roughly a decade now. Home Assistant has never accepted investors, says Schoutsen, and he sees a foundation as the best way to grow. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Schoutsen outlined the platform\u2019s future roadmap at its annual State of the Open Home presentation<\/a> on Saturday, April 20th. In an interview ahead of the live stream, he told The Verge<\/em> about some of the bigger changes planned for Home Assistant following this transition:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n (See sidebar for more on these.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n