The development team behind 'Home Assistant,' which can centrally manage IoT devices across manufacturer boundaries, has established a non-profit organization, the Open Home Foundation, to avoid the risk of being acquired



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Home Assistant ' is an open source service that allows you to centrally manage IoT devices from different manufacturers to build a smart home. The development team of Home Assistant has announced the establishment of a non-profit organization, ' Open Home Foundation .' The establishment of the organization will make the development of Home Assistant sustainable and avoid acquisition by a company.

Open Home Foundation
https://www.openhomefoundation.org/

Announcing the Open Home Foundation – Open Home Foundation
https://www.openhomefoundation.org/blog/announcing-the-open-home-foundation/

When using IoT devices such as smart light bulbs and smart locks, it is common to use management apps and management devices provided by the device manufacturer, and many management apps and management devices are only compatible with their own products. Home Assistant is an open source IoT device management service that allows you to centrally manage devices from different manufacturers. At the time of writing, it supports 2,758 brands. In the following article, you can see the steps to centrally manage robot vacuum cleaners from different brands, 'iRobot', 'ECOVACS', and 'SwitchBot', using Home Assistant.

I tried using 'Home Assistant', which can connect and manage various IoT devices such as robot vacuum cleaners, smart home appliances, and routers all together and automate them - GIGAZINE



The Home Assistant project began in 2013 with a few lines of Python code written by project founder Paulus Schausen to control Philips Hue smart light bulbs. Schausen wanted to be able to control the devices he bought himself, without being influenced by large companies. Since then, Home Assistant has been expanded by thousands of volunteers to provide comprehensive management of many brands.

However, as the project progressed, the development team began to spend their time outside of their regular work hours and on weekends dealing with bugs. This caused the core members of the project, including Mr. Chaussen, to fall into a state of burnout. To overcome this situation, Mr. Chaussen founded Nabu Casa , a for-profit company that provides cloud services for Home Assistant, in 2018. There were some objections to establishing a for-profit company, but in the years since its founding, Nabu Casa has fulfilled its responsibilities, such as 'speaking out to protect the ideals of open source when open source developers are under threat,' 'instructing employees to contribute to the open source community as part of their daily work,' and 'participating in movements aimed at establishing open source standards.'



Later, around 2021, Chaussen developed the concept of Open Home, which is based on the principles of 'privacy,' 'choice,' and 'sustainability.' However, the Home Assistant project was still in an 'undefined state' floating between commercial organizations and the open source community. Therefore, the Open Home Foundation, a non-profit foundation that owns the Home Assistant project, was established with the aim of systematizing and protecting the concept of Open Home and strengthening the unity of developers.



The establishment of the Open Home Foundation will allow the Home Assistant project to avoid the risk of being overseen or taken over by capitalists, and will also help maintain control over the many pieces of software included in the Home Assistant project.

The Open Home Foundation offers three ways to contribute to the project: purchasing Nabu Casa products (Nabu Casa's profits are used to pay the salaries of people involved in the open source community), contributing to the project through coding or translation, and, for larger organizations, contacting them directly about donations and collaborations.

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• Discord | 'Have you ever used the IoT device management software 'Home Assistant'? What devices have you connected to it?' | GIGAZINE
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