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Home Assistant is changing the name of its optional paid Home Assistant Cloud service to Home Assistant Link. Founder Paulus Schoutsen says the change reflects the project’s opposition to cloud-dependent smart-home products, but Link’s remote access and other internet-based features will remain available.
Home Assistant is renaming its optional Home Assistant Cloud service to Home Assistant Link, founder Paulus Schoutsen told The Verge ahead of the announcement. The change is mainly a rebrand: remote access and other existing features remain, while the new name is intended to make clearer that the smart-home platform itself runs locally rather than in the cloud.
Schoutsen described the name change as a response to the reputation cloud services have acquired in consumer technology. “Big tech ruined the cloud, so we’re out,” he told The Verge. The service is run by Nabu Casa, Home Assistant’s commercial partner, and provides a way to reach a Home Assistant installation from outside the home network. Without Link or another remote-access method, the locally operated system cannot be controlled through that installation once a user leaves the home network.
Link costs $6.50 per month or $65 per year, according to the report. Alongside remote access, the subscription offers optional internet-dependent functions, including Alexa and Google voice-control integrations, speech-to-text and text-to-speech, and encrypted backups. The report says the service will receive back-end improvements aimed at speed and reliability, but its core features are not changing with the rename.
The service is optional: Home Assistant users can use alternative methods to reproduce the functions Link provides. Schoutsen says Link traffic is encrypted and Nabu Casa cannot access users’ data. He also said 60 percent of the service’s profit goes to the non-profit Open Home Foundation, which runs Home Assistant. Those privacy and funding descriptions are statements from Schoutsen and the organization, rather than independent findings in the report.
A Rebrand, Not a Move Off the Internet
The announcement draws a distinction between local smart-home control and online services that add convenience. Home Assistant runs on local hardware, while Link helps users connect to it remotely and supplies features that rely on internet access. The name change does not remove those online functions; it signals the project’s concern about cloud-dependent products that can lose functionality when a manufacturer changes or shuts down its service.
That position may appeal to people concerned about privacy, product longevity and control, but Home Assistant’s challenge is to make its flexibility accessible to more households. Schoutsen estimated that the platform is installed in 2.7 million homes, a figure cited in the report; the report provides no comparison window or independently verified measurement. The project is still much smaller in reach than the major mainstream smart-home ecosystems, and its broad feature set can be difficult for new users to configure.
Home Assistant local smart home hub
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Local Control and Home Assistant’s Growth
Home Assistant is an open-source platform designed to run on local hardware and connect devices from different manufacturers. The report describes its appeal as strongest among people who have reached the limits of simpler services such as Apple Home, Google Home and Amazon Alexa. Its flexibility, however, brings a steeper learning curve, which the project is now trying to reduce without removing advanced options.
Schoutsen has criticized products that depend on a manufacturer’s servers to keep working, citing discontinued services and devices that lose features after support ends. He told The Verge that cloud services can still be useful for functions such as speech processing, backups and AI; his concern is reliance on them for basic product operation. He wants manufacturers to favor local control, open standards including Matter, Zigbee, Z-Wave, MQTT and ESPHome, and user control over data.
The team is also working on a “No Device Left Behind” program to help connect existing or older technology, according to the report. Schoutsen said Home Assistant aims to lower the entry barrier while preserving the platform’s wider capabilities, rather than simplifying it by restricting what users can do.
““We are renaming Home Assistant Cloud to Home Assistant Link, because we hate clouds.””
— Paulus Schoutsen, Home Assistant founder, speaking to The Verge
How Much the Experience Will Change
The announcement does not specify when the back-end improvements will be complete or quantify the expected changes to speed and reliability. It also does not describe the pricing or full feature set of the planned replacement for the Home Assistant Green hub, which Schoutsen said is intended to be easier to set up and is planned for next year.
The report gives no detailed rollout schedule for the rename, beyond saying the announcement was being made that day. It also does not establish how many users will adopt Link or whether the planned interface changes will make the platform substantially easier for people new to home automation. The 2.7 million-home estimate is attributed to Schoutsen, and the source does not provide a measurement method or time period for that figure.
Simpler Setup and More Discoverable Integrations
Home Assistant plans to integrate the HACS community store, where users find community-built integrations, into the platform next month, according to Schoutsen. The stated aim is to make integrations easier to find and install. The team is also developing a more user-friendly hub as a successor to Home Assistant Green, with a launch planned for next year; the report does not give a release date.
Those changes, along with work on simpler dashboards and more intuitive setup, are part of the effort to attract users who have not tried Home Assistant or left because it felt complicated. For now, Link retains the service’s existing role and optional status. Further details on its back-end changes and the hardware and software plans will depend on later announcements from Home Assistant and Nabu Casa.
Key Questions
What is Home Assistant Link?
Home Assistant Link is the new name for Home Assistant Cloud, an optional paid service that allows users to access a Home Assistant installation remotely and use additional online features.
Is Home Assistant moving its smart-home system into the cloud?
No. The report says Home Assistant runs on local hardware. Link is an optional way to reach the system remotely and use functions that depend on internet services.
How much does Link cost?
The reported price is $6.50 per month or $65 per year. The report says the rename does not change the service’s core features.
Do Home Assistant users have to subscribe to Link?
No. Link is optional, and users can use other methods to access similar functions. Without a remote-access method, the local installation cannot be controlled from outside the home network.
What changes are planned for Home Assistant?
The team plans to integrate the HACS community store next month and is developing a more user-friendly hub for next year. Release details and full product specifications have not been provided in the source report.
Source: rss
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