Home Assistant
Open-source, local-first home automation platform that connects smart devices from many manufacturers.
HN commenters like it for tying devices from many manufacturers into one place123, keeping control local and private456, and powering custom dashboards and energy-saving automations.789 The most common caveat is that it takes ongoing research, tinkering and maintenance101112, and some users said trust was shaken by private data being sent to a third party by default.1314
Why people recommend it
Device integrations · 3
Integrations for many manufacturers allow cross-vendor automations from a single app.
“It has an integration for lots of manufacturers. Single app, single entry point, cross manufacturer automations.”
“If you're using Home Assistant, you can push any temperature sensor available.”
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“Home Assistant is awesome and I highly recommend checking it out.”
Local and private · 3
Users pick it to keep their smart home off big-tech clouds and under local control.
“I use home assistant and I buy stuff specifically because it supports local connectivity”
“I use Home Assistant to gather info about my house.”
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“I have used home assistant in multiple homes, so I'm sticking with it.”
Dashboards and UIs · 3
People build custom dashboards on old tablets, Kindles and wall displays.
“I love HA, after setting it up I used an old tablet as the dashboard”
“and of course Home Assistant dashboard. They are awesome little machines.”
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“Best family app to me is home assistant.”
Local voice · 3
Its voice assistant can run fully locally and is pluggable and customisable.
“Home Assistant have a fully local voice assistant experience that's very pluggable and customisable.”
“I use a home assistant voice preview speaker, connected to a locally hosted whisper instance backed by Qwen 3.6”
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“This is my setup for Home Assistant voice”
Energy optimization · 3
Commenters use it to shift heating, EV charging and chores to cheaper electricity.
“I run Home Assistant, and I do not have much of the typical home stuff on it.”
“Then I use Home Assistant to send the current electricity price to that display when the price changes”
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“I used a Shelly relay and Home Assistant, it was simpler”
Responsiveness · 1
One switcher found the same devices responded instantly compared with slow, flaky HomeKit.
“I've switched to Home Assistant and the same devices on the same network work instantly, as they should.”
Caveats and dissent
Maintenance effort · 3
It does not 'just work' and needs research, tinkering and ongoing admin.
“I love Home Assistant for all of the reasons you list but I wouldn't say it "just works".”
“the admin job I gave myself maintaining this stuff eventually got old”
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“give people the power of HA without needing to maintain it themselves”
Privacy trust · 2
Users were troubled to learn data was sent to a third party by default.
“The entire reason I use Home Assistant is because I trust it to be the local, privacy focused home automation system.”
“annoyed to learn a system I installed mainly for privacy was sending private data to a third party by default.”
Initial setup · 2
The initial setup can be convoluted, and home automation is a rabbit hole.
“I love HA, after setting it up I used an old tablet as the dashboard”
“I run it in a VM on a proxmox server (because I use it for other stuff), it works like a charm.”
Developer conduct · 1
One commenter was turned off by what they called toxic developers.
“Toxic developers turned me off Home Assistant.”
Often compared with
1 moved from HomeKit to Home Assistant
1 moved from Home Assistant to HomeKit
1 moved from Alexa to Home Assistant
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- I added a non-wi-fi Mitsubishi AC to Home Assistant 5 mentions
- What I self-host 4 mentions
- I hired an illustrator to draw my house. Now it's my Home Assistant dashboard 4 mentions
- I never authorized an integration that scans my secrets 3 mentions
- Why the Smart Home Bubble Popped 3 mentions
- Home Assistant waters my plants 3 mentions
Data: home-assistant.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 50
“being able to control my home, optimise the energy usage, improve security.”
“The entire reason I use Home Assistant is because I trust it to be the local, privacy focused home automation system.”
“annoyed to learn a system I installed mainly for privacy was sending private data to a third party by default.”
“Toxic developers turned me off Home Assistant.”
“So far it is ok.”
“home assistant”
“I use it for my Home Assistant setup and more.”
“running arr stack, jellyfin, home assistant, pi hole”
“Home assistant is full of adapters like this.”
“I've switched to Home Assistant and the same devices on the same network work instantly, as they should.”
“whatever I want to activate with Home Assistant”
“many more metrics and dashboards in my home assistant instance, both of which I use on a daily basis”
“and of course Home Assistant dashboard. They are awesome little machines.”
“HomeAssistant on all of them”
“runs almost 20 services, from home assistant and jellyfin”
“This is my setup for Home Assistant voice”
“Home Assistant is tremendously helpful as a FOSS alternative to Control4, Crestron, Savant, Lutron, and Josh.ai”
“I used a Shelly relay and Home Assistant, it was simpler”
“I have home assistant and I'm not sure I could fulfill my needs without it.”
“connects to my homeassistant for home automation”
“p.s. I wish I had huge eink display for home assistant dashboards.”
“onnx scores all my HA entities to determine which one I'm talking about”
“I use Battery Notes in HA”
“I love Home Assistant for all of the reasons you list but I wouldn't say it "just works".”
“I have used home assistant in multiple homes, so I'm sticking with it.”
“Home Assistant already has an LLM plugin, you can wire it up to a local LLM if you want”
“The skill and HA MCP I use allows the LLM to use tools which make more precise changes without excessive context usage.”
“keeping local control through Home Assistant”
“Home Assistant (Awesome Smart Home Platform)”
“to stop IOT devices from doing funny things to HomeAssistant”
“If you're using Home Assistant, you can push any temperature sensor available.”
“HA has good support for that. This is what I use.”
“I've been using mitsubishi2MQTT with Home Assistant.”
“to control my units from home assistant”
“I used the Python scripting interface in Home Assistant to replicate this [1] feature”
“I have been using HA daily for years now.”
“I use the Home Assistant integration for that and put up with the rest.”
“For Home Assistant I use a combination of Grok 4.20 and DeepSeek Flash 4.1.”
“with the HomeAssistant VoicePE”
“Home Assistant will do that, but it feels a little fragile with my car charger”
“the admin job I gave myself maintaining this stuff eventually got old”
“I use Home Assistant to gather info about my house.”
“I use home assistant and I buy stuff specifically because it supports local connectivity”
“Then I use Home Assistant to send the current electricity price to that display when the price changes”
“It has an integration for lots of manufacturers. Single app, single entry point, cross manufacturer automations.”
“I run Home Assistant, and I do not have much of the typical home stuff on it.”
“I love HA, after setting it up I used an old tablet as the dashboard”
“give people the power of HA without needing to maintain it themselves”
“Home Assistant have a fully local voice assistant experience that's very pluggable and customisable.”
“Home Assistant is awesome and I highly recommend checking it out.”