The open-source smart home platform Home Assistant is removing the word "cloud" from its paid service. Home Assistant Cloud becomes Home Assistant Link. "We are renaming Home Assistant Cloud to Home Assistant Link, because we hate clouds," founder Paulus Schoutsen told The Verge. "Big tech ruined the cloud, so we're out."
The change is largely symbolic. The features — remote access to your Home Assistant instance from outside your home network, encrypted backups, text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and hooks into Alexa and Google voice control — stay the same, at the same price of $6.50 a month or $65 a year. The service is run by Nabu Casa, Home Assistant's commercial partner, and 60 percent of its profit goes to the non-profit Open Home Foundation that governs the platform. Traffic is end-to-end encrypted: "We can't see it, and we don't want to," Schoutsen said. "You don't have to trust me not to misuse your data because I just don't have your data."
The rename also fixes an awkward contradiction. Home Assistant runs on hardware in your home and controls your devices locally; its team has spent years arguing against cloud-dependent products, while selling a service with "cloud" in the name. Schoutsen points to Nest switching off the cloud for early thermostats and Weber sunsetting the June Oven's servers — "Now you have a dumb oven that cost $1,500" — as evidence that cloud dependence is a trap for buyers. He wants manufacturers to commit to local control by default over open standards such as Matter, Zigbee, Z-Wave and MQTT, and has suggested a "nutrition label" on boxes showing whether a product needs the cloud.
Home Assistant is installed in an estimated 2.7 million homes — a fraction of Alexa's or Google Home's reach. Its plan to grow is to lower the barriers: simpler dashboards, a more user-friendly hub next year, and integration of the HACS community store into Home Assistant next month. Schoutsen is also betting that AI dissolves the platform's complexity. "Soon you're just going to have your agent configure your software for you," he said, arguing that Home Assistant's local-first design makes it a natural place for an agent to run.
