Home Assistant

Open SourceShow HN 2013

Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first

Home Assistant is the central nervous system for privacy-conscious smart homes. It connects thousands of devices locally without transmitting data to cloud servers.

99.5Score
Mentions
3,820
Discussers
2,450
positive
98%

Hacker News Consensus & Insights

Synthesized from developer and community discussions across multiple years.

Why Hackers Love It

  • 100% local control: your lights, sensors, and cameras continue working during internet outages
  • Over 2,500 integrations with hardware ecosystems (Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter, ESPHome)
  • Massive active developer and enthusiast community

Common Concerns & Tradeoffs

  • Occasional breaking changes during monthly major updates
  • Complex YAML automations can take time to master
Ideal for: Anyone building a local-first, cloud-independent smart home.

Frequently Mentioned Alongside

Verbatim Hacker News Discussions

Real, unfiltered comments from independent developers.

1 comments
@balloob•12/26/2019
Original post ↗
Thread: Ask HN: What is your best smart home setup?
“Your home is your sanctuary. Cloud cameras and door locks that fail when AWS goes down are unacceptable.”