We celebrate the people and passion that made this year's State of the Open Home so special: and share the event video so you can see for yourself!

It's the April newsletter! This month, we reflect on an amazing State of the Open Home 2026, what it means to truly "Build in the open", and what's coming next. 🚀

Read on for roadmaps, RSS feeds, meetups and more! 👇

#Newsletter #SmartHome #HomeAssistant

State of the Open Home 2026 Join the Open Home Foundation team and guests for the State of the Open Home 2026 livestream. It's our annual event where we celebrate our community, share s...

As always, you can watch the full event here:

An image as part of a carousel of images. The image features a light blue to purple gradient, with various geometric shapes in the background. A few of these shapes have been replaced with images, cropped to the same shape. The images feature photographs of the speakers during the event. This graphic's text reads "Let's hear it for our speakers!" In the bottom left if the logo for the "State of the open home 2026". In the bottom right is the logo for the Open Home Foundation.

An image as part of a carousel of images. The image features a light blue to purple gradient, with various geometric shapes in the background. A few of these shapes have been replaced with images, cropped to the same shape. The images feature photographs of the speakers during the event. This graphic's text reads "Building in the open with Labs and Sendspin" In the bottom left if the logo for the "State of the open home 2026". In the bottom right is the logo for the Open Home Foundation.

An image as part of a carousel of images. The image features a light blue to purple gradient, with various geometric shapes in the background. A few of these shapes have been replaced with images, cropped to the same shape. The images feature photographs of the speakers during the event. This graphic's text reads "And with partners from Apollo Automation and Nabu Casa" In the bottom left if the logo for the "State of the open home 2026". In the bottom right is the logo for the Open Home Foundation.

An image as part of a carousel of images. The image features a light blue to purple gradient, with various geometric shapes in the background. A few of these shapes have been replaced with images, cropped to the same shape. The images feature photographs of the speakers during the event. This graphic's text reads "Sharing our plans with the roadmap" In the bottom left if the logo for the "State of the open home 2026". In the bottom right is the logo for the Open Home Foundation.

Let's hear it for our speakers! 🎤

The team covered how we're building in the open, what's next from our commercial partners, and a new roadmap that you can shape!

Thank you for joining us at State of the Open Home 2026. 🎉

#SmartHome #HomeAutomation #HomeAssistant #ESPHome #MusicAssistant

State of the Open Home 2026 Join the Open Home Foundation team and guests for the State of the Open Home 2026 livestream. It's our annual event where we celebrate our community, share s...

Watch the full State of the Open Home here:

Building what's next: State of the Open Home 2026 – Open Home Foundation From a new Community department to a public roadmap awaiting your input – and more. Catch up on the event highlights and help shape what we build next.

The Open Home Foundation has an official blog now! 🎉

For our first post, we have the State of the Open Home recap blog. Thanks so much to everyone who joined us in person and watched us live - if you missed out on the live event, you can find the whole thing on our Youtube channel.

#HomeAutomation

A graphic with a background of blue-purple shades of geometric shapes. In the top of the image is a photograph taken from the State of the Open Home 2026 event. The image shows a high-vantage point view looking down on the seated crowd on the left, and Paulus Schoutsen stood on stage. The image shows a blue-purple theme. Members of the audience are raising their hand, with Paulus, in response to the question "Who wants to hear what's coming up next for the Open Home Foundation". Below the image is the text "That's a wrap! Thanks to everyone in Utrect and watching worldwide. Let's build in the open together!" In the bottom left is the text/logo "State of the Open Home 2026" and in the bottom right is the Open Home Foundation logo.

That's a wrap on State of the Open Home 2026! 🎉
Thank you to everyone who joined us in Utrecht and watching worldwide! We are so excited for the year ahead. Let's build in the open together!

Join the Open Home Foundation team and guests for the State of the Open Home 2026 livestream. It's our annual event where we celebrate our community, share s...

We are Live! 🎤
State of the Open Home 2026 is here! We're talking about what's up next for the Home Assistant (and other projects), how we're building in 2026, and sharing some huge wins from the year gone.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyAL...

State of the Open Home 2026 Join the Open Home Foundation team and guests for the State of the Open Home 2026 livestream. It's our annual event where we celebrate our community, share s...

Join us live for State of the Open Home 2026! 🎥

Next week on Wednesday, April 8, we go live on the Open Home Foundation YouTube channel for our annual event.

Tune in to celebrate our community, share successes, and get excited about what’s next as we continue to build in the open. 👇

Join us at TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht, for State of the Open Home 2026! 🇳🇱

Tickets include casual dinner, drinks, and a chance to connect with the community at the live event! See you there?

sotoh.openhomefoundation.org

Why we’re investing in the human touch AI can do great things, but it will never replace our community. Find out about the different ways we're investing in our key strength: people.

For the March newsletter, we highlight why while Big Tech bets on AI, we’re investing in humans. 🤝

Read on to learn about how real people are our strength, the new community team, and more 👇🏼

#Newsletter #SmartHome #HomeAssistant

Your ticket includes: entry to the full evening, a casual dinner from 18:00, the main program at 19:30, plus drinks and networking afterwards. You'll also receive a welcome pack to take home!

sotoh.openhomefoundation.org

For you lucky people joining us in Utrecht, NL 🇳🇱 for State of the Open Home 2026, we've just released our program! 🗓️

If you don't have your ticket yet, a few are still available.
sotoh.openhomefoundation.org

#SOTOH26 #HomeAssistant #SmartHome #HomeAutomation

State of the Open Home - Open Home Foundation Join us in Utrecht on April 8 for State of the Open Home 2026. Your chance to celebrate, connect, and discover what's next - visit our site to learn more!

There's still time! 🕗
Tickets are still available for you to experience State of the Open Home 2026 in person.Join us live in Utrecht, NL 🇳🇱, April 8.

#SmartHome #HomeAutomation #HomeAssistant

Meet the speakers of SOTOH26! 🎙

They'll be taking to the stage on Wednesday, 8 April to celebrate building in the open with our community, share successes and get excited about what's coming next.

Join us online or in person. Limited tickets available: sotoh.openhomefoundation.org/

#HomeAssistant

State of the Open Home - Open Home Foundation Join us in Utrecht on April 8 for State of the Open Home 2026. Your chance to celebrate, connect, and discover what's next - visit our site to learn more!

Tickets on sale NOW! 🎟️

Your chance to join our live audience has arrived! Be part of the inspiring conversations, lively debate, and creative energy that flows when Open Home advocates get together!

#SmartHome #HomeAutomation #HomeAssistant

The final frontier Big Tech won't explore This month we boldy go into the subject of our core innovation: openness, and why our competitors won't copy it. Plus, our merch store is go!

For the February newsletter, we highlight why openness fundamentally conflicts with how Big Tech makes money by forcing people into ecosystems that only the company controls.

Read on about how being open is our core innovation, learn about our new merch store, and more 👇🏼

#Newsletter #HomeAssistant

Don’t rent what you need to own In 2026's first newsletter, we discuss how open source is the path to digital sovereignty, for individuals and nations alike.

In 2026's first newsletter, we talk about how open source is the path to digital sovereignty: something you (and indeed nations) can own without relying on renting infrastructure.

Read on about how more control = better privacy, plus a recap of this year's CES & more 👇🏼

#SmartHome #OpenSource

State of the Open Home 2026: join us live in Utrecht, the Netherlands! Join us in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on April 8 for State of the Open Home 2026. Your chance to celebrate, connect, and discover what's next – visit our site to learn more!

We shared the date for State of the Open Home '26 - today we reveal a little more 👀

Join us - in person or online - in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on April 8. You read that right, in person! Tickets coming early February.

Read on for more on what you can expect this year 👇🏼

#HomeAssistant #SmartHome

The save the date announcement graphic, created by our graphic artist Clelia Rella. Centered on a dark blue background are geometric shapes: a blue asterisk on the left, green gradient ovals made to look like a plant with leaves in the middle, and four purple into blue gradient circles stacked in a square. Text centered above the shapes reads: Wednesday April 8, 2026 State of the Open Home In-person & Online Text centered below the shapes reads: Save the date <logo> Open Home Foundation

Big news from today's @home-assistant.io live stream: April 8 is the date of this year’s State of the Open Home — an annual event where we highlight what’s new and what’s coming next for our projects.

Mark your calendars – more details coming soon!

Meet our new commercial partner: Apollo Automation We chat to Apollo Automation about why they've joined us as our second partner. Plus we talk toilets, and why things seem to be getting worse.

As the year winds down with the last newsletter of 2025, there are still some surprises in store! 🎄

We're thrilled to chat with our new commercial partner @apolloautomation.bsky.social about joining us – plus we welcome Z-Wave JS & microWakeWord to the foundation. 🎉

Read more 👇🏻

#SmartHome

Giving matter.js a new home The open source project matter.js has been donated to the foundation, which will help supercharge Matter Server development.

We believe Matter is changing the trajectory of the smart home industry for the better – which is why we're thrilled the developer of matter.js has donated it to the Open Home Foundation!

Discover how we plan to take an active role in shaping the future of this standard 👇🏼

#HomeAssistant #SmartHome

AI is optional, privacy isn't Celebrating its 12th anniversary and a new $50,000 donation from DuckDuckGo, the Open Home Foundation introduces its principles for keeping AI user-controlled.

In the latest newsletter, we lay out the guidelines to ensure we don't get lost chasing AI for tech's sake when integrating it into what we build. With AI, we want our users to be in full control.

See what those guidelines are, upcoming meetups, & more 👇🏼

#SmartHome

Why isn't there one standard? We explore why supporting multiple open smart home standards is better than having just one, highlighting the launch of the new Connect ZWA-2.

Are there too many smart home standards out there? In this month's newsletter, we peek into why there isn't one standard that fits all.

Check out the pros and cons of the biggest standards, and why we built our latest Z-Wave hardware, along with much more 👇🏼

#Newsletter #SmartHome

You don’t own it if they can break it This newsletter covers the recent cloud disasters from three companies, and why local control is the only safe path forward for your smart home.

Worried your cloud-controlled smart devices could be ruined by the manufacturer? You should be.

Our latest newsletter covers the recent cloud disasters from three companies, and why local control is the only safe path forward for your smart home 👇🏼

#Newsletter #SmartHome

Getting out of the home This month’s newsletter covers highlights from our Summit, community day stats, new voice features, Apple following our lead, and more.

June was an especially energizing month - we came together in person for the first Open Home Foundation Summit in Dublin. 🤩

This month's newsletter covers highlights from the summit, stats from Community Day, new voice features, Apple following our lead, and more! Read on 👇🏼

#SmartHome #Newsletter

Open Home Foundation Jobs Open Home Foundation Jobs

We have several new job openings! 🥳 Do any of these sound like a fit? We'd love to hear from you - apply today! 👇🏼

🔹 Node.js Engineer
🔹 Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
🔹 E-Commerce Operations Manager
🔹 Digital Marketing Manager
🔹 Market Researcher

Talent Acquisition and HR Specialist We are looking for The Open Home Foundation is looking for a Talent Acquisition and HR Specialist based in Europe to join our Back-Office team. This team is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Foundation, offering support to the rest of teams to ensure the proper functioning of our entire organization. In this role you will be mainly focused on recruitment, but we also expect you to collaborate with other HR responsibilities depending on the amount of vacancies you’re working with at any given time. What you are going to do - Develop and execute comprehensive recruitment strategies to attract top talent for both technical and non-technical roles. - Manage the full recruitment lifecycle, including sourcing, screening, interviewing, candidate management and offers. - Collaborate with hiring managers to define job requirements, develop interview plans, and assess candidate qualifications. - Utilize various sourcing techniques beyond LinkedIn to identify and engage passive candidates for specialized roles. - Maintain accurate and up-to-date records of candidate interactions and recruitment activities in our Applicant Tracking System. - Lead employer branding initiatives to enhance the Foundation’s reputation as an employer of choice and attract a diverse talent pool. - Assist with onboarding activities for new employees, ensuring a smooth and positive integration into the organization. - Support HR initiatives and projects, such as benefits administration, compliance, and employee relations. - Respond to employee inquiries regarding HR policies, procedures, and benefits. - Assist with the development and implementation of HR policies and procedures. What you need to have - 3+ years of experience in Talent Acquisition, recruiting for both technical and non-technical roles. - Experience working with distributed, remote teams. Our team is currently spread across 15 countries and 6 different time zones, so we have a bias for asynchronous communication. - Knowledge of sourcing techniques beyond LinkedIn. Some of our vacancies will be highly specialized, which means that candidates won’t always be easy to find. - Experience working in start-ups or scale-ups in the software development or smart home industries. - Professional Fluency in English: Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English. - European Residency: You must be currently based and eligible to work within Europe. It would be great if you also have - A passion for smart homes and automation - Experience as a Home Assistant user - Experience in Human Resources What we offer you The Open Home Foundation is a fully remote organization that uses Remote to employ people from all over the world. You will be a normal salaried employee in your country. This is a full-time position for 40 hours per week. Because we are a fully remote company, there is no fixed schedule. For the purpose of team communication, we do try to ensure at least 3 hours of overlap in the workday. You will report to the Head of Operations, who is based in Spain. Core to the establishment of the Open Home Foundation was the well-being of the people building the future of the smart home. We will provide all the benefits required by the country you reside in. However, we also want to make sure all our employees, regardless of country of origin, get at least a minimal set of benefits, including: - Five weeks (twenty-five days) of paid time off. - Fourteen days of paid sick leave if your country/laws treat them as unpaid. - Six weeks of paid and six weeks of unpaid parental leave to be used in the first year after birth. We will provide the missing days if your country/laws do not provide such compensation. - A budget for your work hardware once you start. After three years, you may keep this equipment for personal use. - An annual smart home budget to ensure you keep up-to-date with the latest that smart homes offer. - A 50% contribution to your internet connection fee at your home workspace. - One day every two weeks to work on your personal projects. - If you are currently working on Home Assistant-related side projects, you can spend work time maintaining them. When first offering a position to a new member, the Open Home Foundation aims to provide a total compensation package that matches the 75th percentile for the new hire's role, seniority, and local market rates. For a Talent Acquisition Specialist in our some of our operating countries, the approximate yearly compensation will be the following: - Italy: 41.000 EUR - Portugal: 33.000 EUR - Czech Republic: 920.000 CZK - Other countries: compensation can be discussed during the first interview. These figures may be adjusted based on experience, qualifications, and work hours. About us The Open Home Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Switzerland, with the objective of fighting for the fundamental principles of privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart homes. It does this by supporting the development of open-source projects, and open connectivity and communication standards. A big part of this is Home Assistant https://www.home-assistant.io/, the biggest https://github.blog/news-insights/octoverse/octoverse-2024/#the-state-of-open-source open-source project in number of contributors, but the Open Home Foundation also owns or collaborates with other projects important to promoting privacy, choice, and sustainability in the smart home, like: - Open hardware tools (e.g., ESPHome https://esphome.io/, ESP Web Tools https://esphome.github.io/esp-web-tools/) - Open standards (e.g., Python Matter Server https://github.com/home-assistant-libs/python-matter-server, Z-Wave JS https://github.com/zwave-js, ZigPy https://github.com/zigpy/zigpy, BTHome https://bthome.io/, Improv Wi-Fi https://www.improv-wifi.com/) - Open voice (e.g., Rhasspy https://github.com/rhasspy/rhasspy, Wyoming Protocol https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/wyoming/, Piper https://github.com/rhasspy/piper) The recruitment process 1. Apply for the role 2. Our team will review your application 3. Interview with your manager 4. Skills assessment 5. Interview with a member of the board 6. Offer 7. Join our team!

📣 WE'RE ALSO HIRING a Talent Acquisition & HR Specialist for the Back-Office team! Are you located in Europe & have:

✅ Recruited technical & non-technical roles?
✅ Worked w/ remote teams?
✅ Sourcing techniques beyond LinkedIn?

Tell us more, apply today! 👇🏼

Node.js Engineeer We are looking for The Open Home Foundation is looking for a Node.js Engineer based in Europe to join our Ecosystem department. This department is responsible for the development of all the projects except Home Assistant under the OHF umbrella, including ESPHome https://esphome.io/, Voice https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2025/02/13/voice-chapter-9-speech-to-phrase/, Music Assistant https://music-assistant.io, our collaborations with other projects like Z-Wave JS https://github.com/zwave-js, and any others that join us in the future. Within the Ecosystem department we are starting up a new project to create a global, independent database for smart home devices which will be a web based platform, based on Node.js and other modern web technologies. Therefore we are looking for (Node.js) TypeScript developers to help create this project from scratch based on the design and ideas of the product and design team of the foundation. What is the Device Database ? As of 2025 the landscape smart homes has evolved to the point of some amazing complexity. Still, classifying all the potential options in a true universal and neutral perspective is something that is missing for making our choices smarter, easier and based on real human feedback. From the Open Home Foundation, we are working on building a centralized device database that aims to host the universal knowledge on smart home devices, by relying on the real scenarios of people participating in Home Assistant community and adding a layer of collective intelligence. Its a big aim and something we strongly believe in from the Open Home Foundation. What you are going to do - Design and implement scalable, high-performance, and reliable Node.js applications - Shape infrastructure needed to store and manage a large database of smart home devices and be able to scale it efficiently. - Work hand-in-hand with the product manager to shape the application as it grows and evolves over time. - Review teammates code - Ensure the performance, security, quality, and responsiveness of this new cloud service, together with the Infrastructure Working Group within the Open Home Foundation. - Stay up-to-date with industry trends and ensure the project adopts best practices. What you need to have - 5+ years of experience working in back-end development - 3+ years of experience working with Node.js http://node.js - 3+ years of experience working with TypeScript - Experience with the NestJS Framework - Experience with Git and GitHub - Professional Fluency in English: Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English. - European Residency: You must be currently based and eligible to work within Europe. It would be great if you also have - Experience contributing to open-source projects - A passion for smart homes and automation - Experience as a Home Assistant user - Experience with frontend development - Experience with the Python programming language What we offer you The Open Home Foundation is a fully remote organization that uses Remote to employ people from all over the world. You will be a normal salaried employee in your country. This is a full-time position for 40 hours per week. Because we are a fully remote company, there is no fixed schedule. For the purpose of team communication, we do try to ensure at least 3 hours of overlap in the workday. You will report to the Ecosystem Lead, Marcel, who is based in the Netherlands. Core to the establishment of the Open Home Foundation was the well-being of the people building the future of the smart home. We will provide all the benefits required by the country you reside in. However, we also want to make sure all our employees, regardless of country of origin, get at least a minimal set of benefits, including: - Five weeks (twenty-five days) of paid time off. - Fourteen days of paid sick leave if your country/laws treat them as unpaid. - Six weeks of paid and six weeks of unpaid parental leave to be used in the first year after birth. We will provide the missing days if your country/laws do not provide such compensation. - A budget for your work hardware once you start. After three years, you may keep this equipment for personal use. - A monthly smart home budget to ensure you keep up-to-date with the latest that smart homes offer. - A 50% contribution to your internet connection fee at your home workspace. - If you are currently working on Home Assistant-related side projects, you can spend work time maintaining them. When first offering a position to a new member, the Open Home Foundation aims to provide a total compensation package that matches the 75th percentile for the new hire's role, seniority, and local market rates. For a Software Engineer in our primary operating countries, the approximate yearly compensation will be the following: - Netherlands: 76.000 EUR - UK: 88.000 GBP - Spain: 60.000 EUR - France: 68.000 EUR - Other countries: compensation can be discussed during the first interview. These figures may be adjusted based on experience, qualifications, and work hours. About us The Open Home Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Switzerland, with the objective of fighting for the fundamental principles of privacy, choice, and sustainability for smart homes. It does this by supporting the development of open-source projects, and open connectivity and communication standards. A big part of this is Home Assistant https://www.home-assistant.io/, the biggest https://github.blog/news-insights/octoverse/octoverse-2024/#the-state-of-open-source open-source project in number of contributors, but the Open Home Foundation also owns or collaborates with other projects important to promoting privacy, choice, and sustainability in the smart home, like: - Open hardware tools (e.g., ESPHome https://esphome.io/, ESP Web Tools https://esphome.github.io/esp-web-tools/) - Open standards (e.g., Python Matter Server https://github.com/home-assistant-libs/python-matter-server, Z-Wave JS https://github.com/zwave-js, ZigPy https://github.com/zigpy/zigpy, BTHome https://bthome.io/, Improv Wi-Fi https://www.improv-wifi.com/) - Open voice (e.g., Rhasspy https://github.com/rhasspy/rhasspy, Wyoming Protocol https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/wyoming/, Piper https://github.com/rhasspy/piper) The recruitment process 1. Apply for the role 2. Our HR team will review your application with the hiring manager 3. Interview with HR 4. Technical assessment 5. Technical Interview 6. Interview with Infrastructure 7. Offer 8. Join our team!

📣 WE'RE HIRING a Node.js Engineer under the Ecosystem department - this person will help us build the device database we're working on. Are you:

✅ Based in Europe?
✅ Experienced in Typescript?
✅ A contributor to open source projects?

We'd love to hear more from you! Apply here 👇🏼

It's just a Matter of time The new Matter standard is still a work in progress, and why that's okay, and why we still believe in it.

In this month's newsletter, we delve into why Matter's slow progress may not be a bad thing - its future is promising.

Read on to learn how open source is shaping this new smart home standard, and catch up on the latest Open Home news 👇🏼

Big first year, bigger second We recap the Foundation’s first year—and as we gear up for year two, there’s a new structure, a shift in staff, and a bold new project: the Device Database.

April marks the 1st year of the Open Home Foundation. In this month's newsletter, we look back on what we accomplished in that time and what's to come from us. 👏🏻

Catch up on what we've done and read more on the next big thing for the foundation 👇🏼

#Newsletter #SmartHome #OpenHome