Celebrating its 12th anniversary and a new $50,000 donation from DuckDuckGo, the Open Home Foundation introduces its principles for keeping AI user-controlled.

We explore why supporting multiple open smart home standards is better than having just one, highlighting the launch of the new Connect ZWA-2.

This newsletter covers the recent cloud disasters from three companies, and why local control is the only safe path forward for your smart home.

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

Open Home Foundation Jobs

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 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!

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

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.

More ways to follow us: Newsletter: https://newsletter.openhomefoundation.org/#/portal/signup Blog: https://home-assistant.io/blog/ Discord (chat): https://home-assistant.io/join-chat/ Forums: https://community.home-assistant.io Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/homeassistant/ Mastodon: https://fosstodon.org/@homeassistant Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/home_assistant

Works With Home Assistant helps clearly indicate to the large Home Assistant community which devices provide the best smart home experience, both now and in the future.

Home Assistant

Home Assistant

Home Assistant

This month made me really think deeply about big tech’s push to combine voice and AI, and how this can put your privacy at serious risk.

April 12th will bring another big stream full of exciting updates and announcements.