Home Assistant · set up for your home

One small box runs your whole house, around the sun and the power price.

Home Assistant is free, open-source home automation that runs on a small box in your home, not in someone else’s cloud. It brings your car, spa, aircon, garden, locks, lights and voice together, and PowerPilot adds the energy smarts on the same box.

1,500+brands and services it works with, from Tesla to Sonos
Freeopen-source software, with nothing to pay to run it
Localit runs in your home and keeps your data there
No. 1open-source project by contributors in 2025
The screens

Your whole house on one wall.

A wall tablet puts the whole house on one screen.

Wall tablet home screen: week forecast, Amber import and export prices, battery gauge at 100%, solar, home, battery and grid flow, Tesla charge status, aircon controls with fan speed and zones, robot vacuum, and a grid of light buttons
Your whole home on one screen. Set the aircon and every zone, switch any light, check the battery, the solar and what power costs right now, watch the car charge and send the vacuum home. One tap each. Tap the screen to see it full size.

Two Sonoff NSPanel Pro wall panels sit at the doors, each with a button to talk to the voice assistant.

Front-door panel: garage door closed, Tesla locked and charging status, hallway light slider, front, garden and feature light buttons, and a Talk to Jarvis button
Front door

At the front: the garage, the car and the entry lights.

Back-door panel: deck, kitchen, island and living room light sliders, dining, festoon, flood and garden light buttons, spa sanitise, lights and four jet buttons, spa at 37.4 °C, sauna set to 60 °C with session timer, ice bath cooling to 7 °C with flow 16.2 L/min, garden watering buttons, and a Talk to Jarvis button
Back door

Out the back: the spa, sauna, ice bath, garden watering and outdoor lights.

The panel is the Sonoff NSPanel Pro 120, $199 at SmartHome.

Like the look of that screen? We set it up to suit your house.

Request a consult
Energy and money

It chases the sun and dodges price spikes.

Home Assistant brings every energy device into one place. PowerPilot, on the same box, decides when each one runs.

Home Assistant energy card: battery 100%, solar 1.26 kW, home 1.25 kW, and today's energy flow between solar, grid, battery and home
See what the sun is making, what the battery holds and where your power is going, live.
Cost today by circuit: $6.04 so far, led by the spa at $1.23 and laundry and living at $1.13
Know what every circuit is costing you today, priced live, so you can see exactly where the money goes.

The car charges on sun and cheap power

It charges on spare solar or cheap prices, up to its limit, and pauses in a price spike. Ask for the car's charge, or have it warm the cabin before you leave.

Tesla, via TessiePowerPilot

Comfort that watches the price

It sets back when power is dear and uses spare solar for comfort when someone's home. Open a zone on the wall and it starts; close the last one and it stops. Wireless sensors report the real room temperature.

Daikin ductedSonoff temperature sensorsSonoff motion sensorPowerPilot

The sauna backs off in a price spike

If prices spike while the battery is low, PowerPilot switches the sauna off. It never turns it on by itself. Its temperature, session timer and light sit on a wall panel.

Sauna Wi-Fi kit, no cloud neededPowerPilot

The spa heats on your own solar

It heats on spare solar, coasts through the evening peak, and only tops up from the grid if the sun fell short. Jets, lights and a sanitise cycle are one tap each, and it keeps its own heating and running-cost stats.

SpaNET controllerPowerPilot

The ice bath chills on spare solar

It cools when the sun is paying, holds off on expensive grid power, and waits out spikes. A morning schedule has it cold for the early plunge, and you can see the water flow and whether it's cooling.

Wi-Fi chiller, no cloud neededPowerPilot

Price spike? Your home tells you

When the price spikes, the big loads switch off once, and the speakers say so at the start and again at the all-clear.

Amber pricesSonosPowerPilot

Battery and solar on the wall all day

Battery charge, solar, home use and the grid are live on the wall, with today's energy flow and the solar forecast. Your retailer's battery program stays in charge of the Powerwall; you just see it all live.

Tesla PowerwallSolar forecast

Every circuit shows its running cost

Every circuit in the switchboard can be metered. Each shows what it has cost today at the live price, so you can see which one is eating the bill.

Emporia Vue circuit monitorAmber pricesFitted by a licensed electrician

A morning brief on your phone

At sunrise: battery level, today's price band, the solar forecast, and whether the garage and front door are shut.

Home Assistant phone app
Water and garden

Watering that checks the sky first.

Garden watering cards: run time today 9 minutes and 3 minutes, about 90 litres and $0.31; rain gate dry, watering at 6:00 and 6:10 switched on
Every morning's watering at a glance: how long it ran, about how much water it used, what it cost, and whether rain called it off.

Rain-aware garden watering

Each garden zone waters on its own schedule, and every run is skipped if the forecast says rain, or if the rain sensor was properly wet in the last day. A splash doesn't count.

Sonoff dual tap valveZigbee rain sensorWeather forecast

A running water bill for the garden

Each day shows the garden's minutes, litres and cost at your water price. A valve with its own flow meter lets you see the water actually moving while it runs.

Sonoff dual tap valve

A valve can't be left running

A garden valve left open too long is closed for you, with a message. If a valve drops off the network you're told, and again before the morning run, so a missed watering never goes unnoticed. Water-now buttons sit on the wall panel.

Sonoff dual tap valve

Know which plants need water

A soil sensor in the pot sends a message when a plant has been dry for six hours.

Zigbee soil sensor

A leak alarm on every channel

A leak under any sink sends an urgent alert to your phone, and every speaker in the house says where it is.

Sonoff leak sensorSonos
Security and access

It locks up and keeps watch.

Goodnight, without a button

Once everyone's in bed, the front door locks and the last lights go off. A bedside double-click does it early.

Bed sensorsAugust smart lockSonoff USB switch

The garage door, from your phone

A relay works the opener and a door sensor knows if it's really open. Left open too long? Your phone hears about it.

Shelly relaySonoff door sensor

Away mode in one switch

Lights, non-essentials and the aircon go off, the door locks, and you get a summary. Forget to set it and your phone asks, with a one-tap button. Turn it off and the house welcomes you back.

Sonoff relaysTP-Link KasaDaikinAugust lock

A lived-in look while you're away

On an evening away, lights come on at random through the evening and all go off at bedtime.

Sonoff dimmerRotary dimmersSmart bulbs

It knows the sitter from a stranger

While you're away, the sitter's keypad code gets a friendly “sitter visit” message; a door opened with no known code gets a loud one. The door re-locks itself after 10 minutes.

August lock and keypadSonoff door sensor

It notices when gear goes quiet

If the lock, a door or leak sensor, a valve, the sauna or the garage controller stops reporting, you hear about it, and again when it's back.

Home Assistant

Pick the bits you'd use. The consult tells you what your house needs and what it would cost.

Request a consult
Lights, voice and music

Lights follow the sun. The house talks back.

An evening scene at dusk

Before sunset your lights come on, from the bedside lamps to the backyard, and the outdoor lights go off when you choose: earlier on work nights, later on weekends.

Sonoff relays and dimmersRotary dimmersSmart plugs

Good morning, lamps on

Just before sunrise the outside lights go off and the desk lamps come on.

Sonoff USB switchesSmart plug

Wall switches that do more

An ordinary wall switch becomes a smart button, so the light it controls stays connected even when someone flicks it.

Sonoff relayFitted by a licensed electrician

Bedside buttons

Click for the lamps, double-click for the room lights or to run Goodnight now.

Sonoff wireless button

Two voice assistants that know your house

Wake either one from a small speaker or the wall panel. They set the aircon, run scenes, answer questions about the house and reply in their own voices.

Home Assistant VoiceClaudeElevenLabs voices

Music in any room, by voice

“Play my liked songs” starts the playlist on that room's speakers.

SonosSpotifyMusic Assistant

Get the car ready

Say “Jarvis, get the car ready” and the car unlocks and warms up, with the climate, seat heaters and steering wheel heater on, while the garage door opens and the front door unlocks. Handy for walking out with your hands full. Just want a warm car? “Jarvis, warm up the car.”

Home Assistant VoiceTesla, via TessieShelly relayAugust lock

Home before you're in the door

The house knows when your car or phone pulls in. Have it open the garage, light the path and put some mood music on as you arrive. Want the front door unlocked too? It can ask you first, with one tap on your phone.

Car and phone locationShelly relayAugust lockSonos
It looks after itself

It fixes the usual hiccups and tells you.

Back on its feet after a restart

If a slow cloud service doesn't reconnect after a restart, Home Assistant reloads it by itself.

Home Assistant

Updates put your setup back

If an update wipes a custom device setup, it's restored automatically and you get a message saying so.

Home Assistant

Real errors reach you; noise doesn't

Genuine errors go to Telegram, with chatty devices filtered out. Every minute it checks the router, wall tablet, speakers and battery gateway, so a flaky connection shows up in the data.

Home AssistantTelegram

It knows what needs new batteries

One screen lists every battery-powered sensor from lowest to highest, with the ones to replace soon at the top.

Home Assistant

KasaKeeper looks after the rest

Maintenance schedules, warranties and trade quotes for every system in the house, on the same box. See KasaKeeper.

KasaKeeper
The Sonoff parts we use

Switches and sensors from $19.

Sonoff’s Zigbee range (a wireless standard that works without the internet) runs on the Home Assistant box, with no cloud account.

Part · what it’s forPriceFitting
Two-channel relay lights and outdoor power$29Behind the switch · licensed electrician
Dimmer dimmable lights$49Behind the switch · licensed electrician
Relay for older wiring (no neutral) lamps and outside lights$24Behind the switch · licensed electrician
USB switch desk and decorative lamps$19Plugs in
Temperature and humidity sensors real room temperatures for the aircon$19–$25Battery · stick it anywhere
Door sensors doors and the garage$19Battery
Motion sensor tells PowerPilot someone's home$19Battery
Wireless buttons bedside routines$19Battery
Leak sensor under any sink$25Battery
Dual tap valve two garden zones, with a flow meter$79Screws onto the tap
NSPanel Pro wall panel a dashboard at each door$199In the wall box · licensed electrician

Prices from SmartHome’s Sonoff range, seen 21 Oct 2026. None of those listings states Australian approval (RCM), so the consult checks every part before it goes in. Anything in the walls or switchboard is fitted by a licensed electrician. Home Assistant runs the rest alongside them: garage relays (Shelly), smart locks (August), rotary dimmers, bulbs and plugs (TP-Link Kasa and Tuya), rain and soil sensors, sauna and ice bath controls, spas (SpaNET), aircon (Daikin), batteries and cars (Tesla) and circuit monitors (Emporia).

The software

Mostly free. A few services earn their keep.

What it doesCost
Home Assistant The system everything runs on, on a small box at home.Free
Home Assistant Cloud Secure access from anywhere, without opening up the router.US$6.50 a month
Tessie Brings a Tesla into Home Assistant.From US$6.99 a month per car
Claude The thinking behind the voice assistants.Pay per use
ElevenLabs The assistants' voices.Free tier; paid from US$6 a month
Speech and wake words Run on the box itself, so recordings of your voice never leave the house. Only the words of a request go out, to the AI and the voice service.Free
Music Assistant Spotify on the Sonos speakers, by voice.Free, plus Spotify

Prices from each service’s own pricing page, seen 21 Oct 2026, in US dollars where that’s how they charge.

Before you ask

The questions everyone asks.

What if the internet drops?

Lights, switches, sensors and the wall screens run on the box in your home, so they keep working. Live prices, the AI voices, the car, the smart lock's app and alerts to your phone wait until it's back. PowerPilot holds rather than guesses: losing data makes it do less, not more.

Where does my data go?

It runs in your house, not our cloud. Your home's history is kept on the box, and only what a service you've chosen needs goes out, like a voice request to the AI. You create your Amber token and paste it in yourself, so we never see it.

Who puts it in?

We set it up and test it with you. Anything in the walls or switchboard is quoted and fitted by a licensed electrician, who contracts with you directly.

What about after it's in?

Support is optional: our time at cost, $90 an hour in 15-minute blocks, or a care plan at $360 a year with two seasonal re-tunes, updates and an hour of fixes.

Let’s get Home Assistant running your house.

A $250 consult walks your house and works from your own Amber data, then you get one fixed price with every part itemised, for your install or later at $90 an hour. The $250 is credited in full against your install. Any wiring is quoted and done by a licensed electrician.

Request a consult