How Home Assistant Leads a 'Local-First Rebellion' (github.blog)
- Reference: 0180324231
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/07/1955259/how-home-assistant-leads-a-local-first-rebellion
- Source link: https://github.blog/open-source/maintainers/the-local-first-rebellion-how-home-assistant-became-the-most-important-project-in-your-house/
That's confirmed by this year's " [2]Octoverse" developer survey ...
> Home Assistant was one of the fastest-growing open source projects by contributors , ranking alongside AI infrastructure giants like vLLM, Ollama, and Transformers. It also appeared in the top projects attracting first-time contributors, sitting beside massive developer platforms such as VS Code... Home Assistant is now running in more than 2 million households , orchestrating everything from thermostats and door locks to motion sensors and lighting. All on users' own hardware, not the cloud. The contributor base behind that growth is just as remarkable: 21,000 contributors in a single year...
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> At its core, Home Assistant's problem is combinatorial explosion. The platform supports "hundreds, thousands of devices... over 3,000 brands," as [maintainer Franck Nijhof] notes. Each one behaves differently, and the only way to normalize them is to build a general-purpose abstraction layer that can survive vendor churn, bad APIs, and inconsistent firmware. Instead of treating devices as isolated objects behind cloud accounts, everything is represented locally as entities with states and events. A garage door is not just a vendor-specific API; it's a structured device that exposes capabilities to the automation engine. A thermostat is not a cloud endpoint; it's a sensor/actuator pair with metadata that can be reasoned about.
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> That consistency is why people can build wildly advanced automations. Frenck describes one particularly inventive example: "Some people install weight sensors into their couches so they actually know if you're sitting down or standing up again. You're watching a movie, you stand up, and it will pause and then turn on the lights a bit brighter so you can actually see when you get your drink. You get back, sit down, the lights dim, and the movie continues." A system that can orchestrate these interactions is fundamentally a distributed event-driven runtime for physical spaces. Home Assistant may look like a dashboard, but under the hood it behaves more like a real-time OS for the home...
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> The local-first architecture means Home Assistant can run on hardware as small as a Raspberry Pi but must handle workloads that commercial systems offload to the cloud: device discovery, event dispatch, state persistence, automation scheduling, voice pipeline inference (if local), real-time sensor reading, integration updates, and security constraints. This architecture forces optimizations few consumer systems attempt.
"If any of this were offloaded to a vendor cloud, the system would be easier to build," the article points out. "But Home Assistant's philosophy reverses the paradigm: the home is the data center..."
As Nijhof says of other vendor solutions, "It's crazy that we need the internet nowadays to change your thermostat."
[1] https://github.blog/open-source/maintainers/the-local-first-rebellion-how-home-assistant-became-the-most-important-project-in-your-house/
[2] https://github.blog/news-insights/octoverse/octoverse-a-new-developer-joins-github-every-second-as-ai-leads-typescript-to-1/
and vendors are raceing to lockout any control not (Score:3)
and vendors are racing to lockout any control not part of their shit clould
Never buy any product that... (Score:3)
...requires connection to a server
The cloud is a trap
Run away
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If Home Assistant isn't a server, what is it?
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That's kind of my take on the story, but my wording would be more along the lines of "What are the success criteria?" Or perhaps "Would I donate to support this?" (Surely I would not donate on the basis of the description here and not even feeling motivated to learn more.)
But that's also why I wouldn't donate to support the project. You could think of it as a kind of paradox of choice. There are LOTS of things I could donate money to, but in general the success criteria are almost never clear. Whatever I do
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Pretty sure OP meant an external server given they mentioned the cloud
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but that's not what he said.
Re: Unfortunately, Home Assistant changes very lit (Score:1)
Hmm, the tech bros are wondering why you are on Sloshdat
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One thing I know for sure: the tech bros can't solve any problem. They are now becoming the problem.
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There's a few places it's changing things.
For power users it's been a long standing way to tie together devices, but HomeAssistant also release ready to go products that can be plugged in and then easily accessed on a phone or computer.
HomeAssistant started a "works with HomeAssistant" program where vendors can certify their devices meet certain standards of compatibility (something that's advertised a benefit for sellers)
Many smart home devices run on local mesh networks like Zigbee, Zwave, or Thread (with
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You are wrong about Matter. Matter is IP first. It can automatically connect to the internet as soon as it powers up. Zigbee and Z-Wave are dying. They create as many problems as they try to solve. Matter is the successor of Zigbee. And Zigbee Alliance rebranded as CSA to promote Matter. Just look who owns Ember and Z-Wave and is sitting on the CSA board. Bridge to other protocols, such as Zigbee, is part of the Matter standard. Just look at how Bridge is designed to sabotage the user experience of old pr
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I've build my own Matter thread routers and devices. It doesn't need internet access.You can commission new devices completely isolated from the internet. IP don't mean internet access, it's only a transport protocol.
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Yes, you can. But regular users, the regular folks, can't! So the solution is still tech-bros only.
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Sure, it's tech-bros only now. again. Too much winning.
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Plus, if you block the internet. How can you get the firmware update? Can Home Assistant do it for you? Does anyone have any impact on the vendor firmware? or enforce any trust? Still too much winning?
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Yes HomeAssistant can check for firmware updates for devices and install them if permitted. Or you can ignore the updates.
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Not all vendors use CSA for OTA updates. Many just don't. They force users to install their Apps on smartphones to perform updates. My point is: Home Assistant can't enforce any policy. And those claims do not really belong to them.
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That's as it should be. If you don't want to use the app you don't need to but it shouldn't be dictated to update devices a certain way
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The CSA provides a feature for vendors to publish firmwares.
Some vendors use it and some donâ(TM)t.
HA use only the CSA list to provide updates, AFAIK.
[1]https://webui.dcl.csa-iot.org/ [csa-iot.org]
[2]https://www.home-assistant.io/... [home-assistant.io]
[1] https://webui.dcl.csa-iot.org/
[2] https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/matter/#matter-ota-device-updates
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Ha's own thread border router won't block the Internet. Your setup is still full of holes like Swiss cheese.
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I built my own thread border routers and compiled the software myself. I know exactly what's happen. They have no internet access, period...
My systems Linux firewall and dhcp servers have black-hole lockouts for anything not matching my allowed list.
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That's pretty good. So you are already doing better than Home Assistant.
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Keep telling us how ignorant you are.
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Was more making the point that Thread is a mesh network. Once you connect all these devices to a border router which also has internet connectivity then it's of course possible to connect to the internet if it's configured.
It makes sense that the big companies be involved in creating these standards. They're often building hardware and software that uses it. In theory Matter should be a better protocol that will give users more freedom to switch between (or support multiple) controllers
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Matter is so far the best design. My point is that the benefits Home Assistant claimed are all pretty much void, given that they basically changed nothing.
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Hard to say if it would have gone in a more locked down direction without OHF involvement. If you're fine with Apple Home or manual switches, Home Assistant might not be for you
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I built automation that Home Assistant can't do. [1]https://docs.smartonlabs.com/d... [smartonlabs.com] with zero infromation leak. [2]https://docs.smartonlabs.com/d... [smartonlabs.com]
[1] https://docs.smartonlabs.com/developers_doc/libertas_thing_app/
[2] https://docs.smartonlabs.com/developers_doc/security/
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Sure.
Thing-App is "write once, run everywhere" on IoT controllers and devices, covering billions to trillions of CPUs/MCUs.
Thing-App offers various design guarantees, including guaranteed UI, performance, and safety assurances.
Thing-App covers billions of people, enabling building arbitrarily complex machines without writing a single line of code.
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That's the design goal. Why did you intentionally omit "zero information leak"? Isn't it the most important factor?
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Or if you want a solution that doesn't constantly fail, Home Assistant might not be for you.
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Your claims might be more interesting if there was any evidence you understood what any of these words mean.
Matter so far has been largely a failure, existing standards provide a great deal more function and won't be going anywhere despite the nonsense you spew. Lastly, you couldn't possibly understand what HA is even claiming, you don't even know what IP is.
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I don't even think you know what "design" is. And while Matter used IP, it isn't "IP first" nor do I think you know what that even means. Also, I note you didn't mention Thread, I think there's a good reason for that...and it's because you don't understand what these terms even mean.
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Every Matter message is IP-routable. I feel I should stop discussing with you.
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"Many smart home devices run on local mesh networks like Zigbee, Zwave, or Thread (with Matter) that can't be connect to a cloud server even if they tried. "
You don't understand the first thing about this. Every local "mesh network" can trivially be connected to a "cloud server".
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Yes, there is innovation in it. I've designed several solar energy systems with it using my own PCB designs and software.
[1]https://forum.allaboutcircuits... [allaboutcircuits.com]
I just gave a complete system (loaded mini-pc and matter-thread devices) to one of my kids for their house.
They are very much not tech-bros.
[1] https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/home-assistant-devices-and-uses.206323/
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I would say it's pretty much your innovation. People often make mistakes with credit.
I mean - most of them are local first (Score:3)
HomeAssistant's main strength is in tying otherwise incompatible devices together. Local first is not unique though - HomeKit is local, Matter is local, I don't know much about the Alexa/Google setups but I believe they can be controlled locally too.
Don't get me wrong, Home Assistant is an excellent bit of kit with lots of standardisation and automation. But this article is pushing the wrong part of its strengths - local-first isn't unique. Pick the right ecosystem and it's all local-first anyway.
I have many different smart vendors in my home - Google (originally Nest), Philips, Meross, Aqara, Eve, Ikea, LightwaveRF, Shelly, Eufy, Switchbot...none of them require the internet. All of them can work locally. All of them work in the same ecosystem. Then I have oddities which I use [1]HomeBridge [homebridge.io] for to bridge the gap - Roomba (older, non-Matter, Worx Landroid (robot lawnmower), Dyson Hot'n'Cool thingy, Logitech Harmony...even plugins for Synology which show the NAS's temperature and allow shutdown. Through the use of HomeBridge, I can draw them into the same ecosystem too. None of this requires the internet.
The meme is completely overblown and quite often you can tell by people that don't actually use this kind of tech. Obviously if I want to control this kit from outside the home then I need an internet connection, and if I want to update any of the kit then I need to download the updates from the internet for that too, but operation from within the house? Just a HomeKit/Matter hub, that's all.
[1] https://homebridge.io/
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Exactly, local-first doesn't mean users' data isn't exploited. Devices can simultaneously connect to the internet and send out megabytes of data every day. If they really mean it, they would have said "zero data leak." Nowadays, narratives are often used to distract from stealing, robbing, and Ponzi schemes.
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I must admit I haven't got round to doing it yet, but a common thing to do these days is set up a specific IoT network in your house and have it all connect to that, then limit access to the internet for that network. A lot of routers support doing this out of the box now.
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My point is that those measures have nothing to do with Home Assistant. Their claims are just void.
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Yep - absolutely agree with you. Just because a devices is locally controllable and has opened up localhost:8080, that doesn't prevent it from also opening a connection to [1]https://badthing.example:9999/ [badthing.example] and uploading everything it can find to it. Concepts are orthogonal.
[1] https://badthing.example:9999/
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You mean the claims you understand are void, but you don't understand their claims. And interestingly, your previous post proved you don't understand firewalls and IoT networks.
HA offers automation that is local-only. It's not the only product that does so. You think that IP means not local-only, that's how ignorant you are.
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I think local-only means virtually nothing if every device can go out to the cloud. "Local-only" becomes a false pretence. Will it block Nest from connecting to the cloud? It certainly won't. So it just hooks up to whatever device on the network, whether they are local-only or not.
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And you don't understand any of those narratives either.
HA cannot prevent devices from connecting to the cloud, that's what a firewall does. "Firewall", there's another term you can use that you don't understand.
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The quality of the narrative is similar to the quality of the software, it's as good as Home Assistant can do.
There are solutions that use the cloud, including a service that HA's parent company sells. But there are many local-only solutions, the problem is that home automation is not foolproof and provides insufficient value for its cost and effort. The average guy is completely uninterested and Home Assistant is easily the least important "most important open source" project out there.
My most recent HA
Been using it for ~ 8 years ... (Score:2)
I am a Home Assistant user for at least 8 years.
Initially, it was for automating a few things, including existing door/window sensors from a legacy alarm manufacturer. Using RTL-SDR and rtl_433 I was able to intercept the messages, have them decoded, and into Home Assistant over MQTT.
Then it started to be essential for things like: if you leave a door or window open for more than x minutes, it will complain, unless you turn off that automation temporarily.
Now it does many things: Outdoor temperature, humidi
I grew up in an automated home (Score:5, Interesting)
In the 70's and 80's I grew up in an automated home. My father, and electronics engineer, designed a custom PLC that controlled items throughout the house. You would hear automated vents throughout the duct work doing their thing as heat was transferred around the house on winter days. The system would switch over to a large battery bank when power would go out, fire up the generator in the shed, and then switch over to the generator when warmed up (that saved our bacon during the blizzard of '78). When more automation was needed my father would simply build another card and plug it into a free S-100 looking slot in his custom PLC. Home Assistant is the modern version of this. Keep everything local and under your control. The only thing I didn't like about it was if you tried to take a shower longer than 15 minutes the alarm would go off at the control center in the kitchen warning that water was running too long some where, LOL.
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"Home Assistant is the modern version of this."
AS long as you're not concerned with any details.
"Keep everything local and under your control."
As though that were some revolutionary idea.