Home Assistant, an open-source software for smart homes, has announced the establishment of the Open Home Foundation to officially oversee the project.
Originating from Paulus Schoutsen’s desire to program control for smart Philips Hue lights, Home Assistant was born. The code was then uploaded to GitHub in 2013, and the project continued to grow steadily, evolving into a magnificent smart home control system.
In 2018, Schoutsen founded Nabu Casa to take charge of the project’s development, introducing a subscription-based business model for cloud space rental to manage and store data from IoT devices. However, this commercial profit-driven model obscured Home Assistant’s open-source structure.
Recently, the project’s founders announced the establishment of the non-profit Open Home Foundation as the sole organization owning Home Assistant. They will oversee more than 240 sub-projects, with the foundation’s development guidelines focusing on three main principles:
– Privacy: Upholding data privacy within homes, where homeowners retain ownership of their data.
– Choice: Providing freedom to choose and use devices from any manufacturer, all controlled through open and standard APIs.
– Sustainability: Utilizing old devices even after commercial support ends, reducing electronic waste.
Source: Open Home Foundation, Ars Technica
TLDR: Home Assistant, an open-source smart home software, is now managed by the non-profit Open Home Foundation, focusing on privacy, choice, and sustainability in smart home development.
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