---
title: "Our story"
---

## Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first

Home Assistant is a free and open-source software for home automation that is designed to be the central control system for smart home devices with a focus on local control and privacy. It can be accessed via a web-based user interface, via apps for Android and iOS, or using voice commands via a supported virtual assistant like Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.

IoT devices and services are supported by modular support for controlling proprietary ecosystems if they provide public access via an Open API for third-party integrations and protocols like Bluetooth, MQTT, Zigbee, and Z-Wave, After the Home Assistant software application is installed as a computer appliance it will act as a central control system for home automation. Information from all entities it sees can be used and controlled from within scripts trigger automations using scheduling and "blueprint" subroutines, e.g. for controlling lighting, climate, entertainment systems, and appliances.

# Open Home

The Open Home is our vision for the smart home. It defines the values that we put at the heart of every decision we make at Home Assistant. It’s woven into our architecture, licensing, community, and everything else.

The Open Home is about privacy, choice, and durability.

## Privacy

Your home should be your safe space. A place where you can be your true self without having to bother about what the world thinks of you. A place where you don’t need to act differently to avoid an algorithm categorizing your behavior. Privacy for the Open Home means that devices need to work locally. No one else needs to know if you turn on a light bulb or change the thermostat.

It is okay for a product to offer a cloud connection, but it should be extra and opt-in.

## Choice

Devices in your home gather data about themselves and their surroundings. Your data. Vendors shouldn’t be able to limit your access to your data or limit the interoperability of your devices with the rest of your smart home.

Choice for the Open Home means that devices need to make the gathered data available through local APIs. This avoids vendor lock-in and allows users to create their own smart home with devices from different manufacturers.

## Durability

If there is one thing that technology firms are very good at, it is launching new products. However, maintaining the products and making sure they keep working is an afterthought for most. The result is that vendors can decide to no longer support your device, crippling its features or even preventing it from working at all. As we install more and more devices in our home, durability is becoming more and more important. We shouldn’t have to buy everything new every couple of years because the manufacturer decided to move on.

Durability for the Open Home means that devices are designed and built to keep working. Not just this year, but for the next decade.

# Our history

The project was started as a Python application by Paulus Schoutsen in September 2013 and first published publicly on GitHub in November 2013. In July 2017, a managed operating system called Hass.io was initially introduced to make it easier use to use Home Assistant on single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi series. Its bundled "supervisor" management system allowed users to manage, backup, and update the local installation and introduced the option to extend the functionality of the software with add-ons.

An optional subscription service was introduced in December 2017 for $5/month to solve the complexities associated with secured remote access, as well as linking to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Nabu Casa, Inc. was formed in September 2018 to take over the subscription service. The company's funding is based solely on revenue from the subscription service. It is used to finance the project's infrastructure and to pay for full-time employees contributing to the project.

In January 2020, branding was adjusted to make it easier to refer to different parts of the project. The main piece of software was renamed to Home Assistant Core, while the full suite of software with the embedded operating system and bundled "supervisor" management system was renamed to Home Assistant.
