Home Assistant

Home Assistant is a free, open source smart home automation platform that brings every connected device in your home under one roof - lights, locks, thermostats, cameras, sensors, energy monitors, and hundreds more - regardless of brand or protocol. Instead of juggling five manufacturer apps that each want your data and a cloud subscription, you get a single, self-hosted dashboard that works entirely on your own hardware. It runs in Docker, installs as a dedicated operating system image on a Raspberry Pi or mini PC, and connects to over 3,400 integrations covering everything from Philips Hue and Nest to Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Matter devices.

The problem Home Assistant solves is one that anyone who's bought a few smart home devices quickly runs into: your home ends up fragmented across ecosystems that don't talk to each other, and every convenience comes with a privacy trade-off. Home Assistant runs locally, which means your automations keep working even when the internet goes down, your data never leaves your network, and you're not dependent on a manufacturer keeping their cloud service alive. When a company kills their app or changes their API, Home Assistant's open source community typically has a fix within days.

What sets it apart from every cloud-based smart home platform is just how deep it goes. The visual automation editor lets you build complex multi-step routines without touching any code - but if you want to write YAML, you can. The energy monitoring dashboard tracks your electricity consumption hour by hour. The Lovelace dashboard system is endlessly customisable. There's a built-in voice assistant that runs entirely locally. And with ESPHome, you can even flash your own custom firmware onto cheap Wi-Fi microcontrollers and add them directly to your setup. It's the smart home automation category's most powerful self-hosted platform, and it has the most active open source community to match.

Key Features

• 3,400+ integrations - connects with an enormous range of devices and services out of the box, from Zigbee and Z-Wave hardware to Spotify, Google, Apple, and everything in between
• Local Zigbee and Z-Wave control - built-in Zigbee Home Automation (ZHA) and Z-Wave JS integrations control devices directly without a proprietary hub or manufacturer cloud
• Matter and Thread support - fully compatible with the new cross-brand smart home standard, with real-time device state updates and firmware management built in
• Visual automation editor - drag-and-drop interface for building complex automations using triggers, conditions, and actions, with no coding required
• Energy monitoring dashboard - tracks electricity consumption, solar production, battery storage, and grid usage in real time and over time
• Lovelace dashboard - a fully customisable UI with dozens of card types, drag-and-drop layout editing, and support for custom components from the community
• Local voice assistant (Assist) - a privacy-first voice control system that runs entirely on your own hardware with no cloud processing required
• ESPHome integration - flash and manage custom firmware on ESP8266 and ESP32 microcontrollers and add them as native Home Assistant devices
• Mobile companion app - iOS and Android apps provide remote access, location tracking, push notifications, and a full dashboard view from anywhere
• Docker and Home Assistant OS deployment - flexible installation options from a lightweight Docker container to a full dedicated operating system image for maximum hardware control

Who It's For

Home Assistant is the go-to self-hosted smart home platform for anyone who wants local control, real privacy, and the freedom to connect any device regardless of brand - without paying a monthly subscription or relying on a manufacturer's cloud. It's ideal for Raspberry Pi enthusiasts and homelabbers who enjoy building and tweaking their setup, and for homeowners who've outgrown the limitations of Google Home, Amazon Alexa, or Apple HomeKit. If you want a smart home that you actually own and control, Home Assistant is where most serious smart home builders end up.