Konnected joins Works with Home Assistant

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Works with Home Assistant is opening its doors to another new partner who is bringing the first Garage Door Openers and Alarm Panel to the program, all of which are using ESPHome under the hood. Konnected are well known for their devices that let you retrofit new smarts into the devices you already have, allowing you to use them in Home Assistant and keep them working longer.

Getting Konnected

Konnected have been well-known in the Home Assistant community, as they’ve been active members for years. As members of the community, they know how hard it can be to connect the devices that are already built into your home, whether they’re smart or not. That’s why Konnected’s first product was their drop-in replacement alarm panel boards, which allow you to take decades-old wired alarm systems and add them into Home Assistant.

Another challenge the community was facing was garage door openers (GDOs), especially cloud-based openers. In the early days of Home Assistant, the community figured out the APIs for these providers and controlled them that way. Some manufacturers noticed this and put barriers up blocking people from controlling the devices they own, claiming it as “unauthorized usage” 🙄.

The community was naturally incensed, and did what tinkerers tend to do when a cloud gets in their way — they began tinkering with hardware. A community emerged to take back control of these devices, starting with projects like ratdgo, which Konnected used as a base for their work. Today, because of these projects, there are multiple great open source tools to control a large number of these GDOs, ranging from DIY schematics to finished controllers. Konnected has an open source solution which works locally, as well as having the form factor and safety standards to match. Even better, Konnected devices are available in over 60 countries.

For anyone who has used Konnected for quite some time, you’ll notice that they had their own integration, which has now been deprecated in favor of the ESPHome firmware, so that it’s always straightforward to find (or build) the firmware you need. They even publish all their code on GitHub 👏, which allows the community to help them fix issues and add features.

"We've been users of Home Assistant ourselves since 2018 and thrilled to finally be officially part of the Works with Home Assistant program. Konnected shares many of the same founding principles as Home Assistant, including our commitment to 100% local control, open-source firmware, and high-quality hardware that makes your home smarter, safer and accessible to everyone."

- Nate Clark, Founder / CEO at Konnected

Konnected is another example of ESPHome (a project from the Open Home Foundation) fostering an entirely new ecosystem of Open Home projects. It works fully locally, and it’s perfect for tinkerers, allowing you to build DIY smart home devices yourself (get started with one of our ready-made projects). Konnected also have a thriving community of their own if you have questions or comments.

Creators can also use it to make pre-built, plug-and-play products that give users a really seamless experience. Devices are easily discovered and added to your Wi-Fi network and Home Assistant, along with a one-click update within Home Assistant. To learn more about how Konnected uses ESPHome, look out for Nate on the next ESPHome live stream on October 14!

Remember, the development of projects like ESPHome from the Open Home Foundation is supported by Home Assistant Cloud subscribers and anyone who purchases Home Assistant hardware. While all of Konnected’s devices work locally, if you’re interested in remote access, allowing you to keep tabs on your home’s security when you’re out and about, check out Home Assistant Cloud.

Devices

The Konnected Smart Garage Door Opener blaQ

For anyone new to the Works With Home Assistant program, it’s a way for us to formally certify devices that have been tested by our team, and help you know what works great out of the box with Home Assistant. Any company joining also commits to providing long-term support and firmware updates. Works With Home Assistant is operated by the Open Home Foundation, and the support of Home Assistant Cloud subscribers funds this work. These items were all tested by members of the ESPHome team to see exactly how they function in their own homes.

The Konnected certified devices are listed below:

Let’s Konnect

A nice benefit of retrofitting your old wired security system is not needing to maintain loads of battery-powered sensors 🪫. The Alarm Panel Pro has the ability to connect 12 zones (security speak for individual or joined up sensors), it also allows you to connect keypads and sirens, and includes 12V power for the devices that need that. It’s highly customizable, and there’s also plenty of support available if you need help with installation. You can power it using 12V or Power-over-Ethernet, or both! The Alarm Panel Pro is designed to be always-on, and they’ve designed it to consume very little power. This also allows it to easily run for hours on their backup battery.

You’ll also probably be wondering why there are two different variants of the garage door openers, and that’s because each supports a different set of manufacturers. There is a wizard to help you figure out which variant will work with your opener. Between the Konnected GDO blaQ and White, you get support for some of the biggest manufacturers out there, including Chamberlain, LiftMaster, Craftsman, Merlin, Genie, Stanley, and more.

Even with the Konnected controlling your garage door opener, you’re still able to use the included remote or the original manufacturer’s app (if you like that kind of torture). The GDO White features a built-in optical laser sensor that detects whether your garage door is open or closed. The GDO blaQ offers control over the opener’s light and lock, and can even partially open the door (for openers that support these features).

As we mentioned at the top, it’s great to have more products added to the program that help people get the most out of the things they already own. A big part of the Open Home Foundation’s mission is sustainability in the smart home, and Konnected are helping our community get longer lasting use of their existing security and garage door systems.

FAQs

Q: If I have a device that is not listed under ‘Works with Home Assistant does this mean it’s not supported?

A: No! It just means that it hasn’t gone through a testing schedule with our team or doesn’t fit the requirements of the program. It might function perfectly well, but has not yet been added to the testing schedule, or it might work under a different connectivity type that we don’t currently test under the program.

Q: Ok, so what’s the point of the Works with program?

A: It highlights the devices we know work well with Home Assistant and the brands that make a long-term commitment to keeping support for these devices going. The certification agreement specifies that the devices must have full functionality within Home Assistant, operate locally without the need for cloud and will continue to do so long-term.

Q: How were these devices tested?

A: All devices in this list were tested using a standard Home Assistant Green Hub with the ESPHome integration. If you have another set-up that’s not a problem, but we test against these as they are the most effective way for our team to certify within our ecosystem.

Q: Will you be adding more Konnected devices to the program?

A: Why not! Konnected are also looking to do some exciting things with Matter soon, so we’re excited to work together on any upcoming releases or add in further products that are not yet listed here.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2025/10/07/konnected-joins-works-with-home-assistant
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Errata: “ratdgo” should be “ratgdo”

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Great spot, we’ll get thanks fixed thanks!

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I’d love to install ESPHome on my 6-zone Alarm Panels, but there doesn’t seem to be way to connect to them properly.

Tried the Konnected Flash Tool - Install Konnected via Web Browser, tried Web - ESPHome and it connects to the panels fine, until I try to flash - the device seems to disconnect before the flashing even starts.

Also tried it from my PC by running esphome run konnected.yaml --device COM6 with the full config without success (‘ERROR Running command failed: Failed to connect to ESP8266: No serial data received.’)

And when it’s connected to my HA machine (an RPi5) via cable it doesn’t show up as an option for ‘Plug into the computer running ESPHome Device Builder’.

I got it to work for one panel a few weeks ago - but after struggling until 11pm to get it done, I was to tired to tackle the other three. I now tried to start over, and I’m having zero success with it.

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I just installed ESPHome on my Konnected Alarm Panel Pro v1.6. I had 3 main issues. 1) The Silicon Labs driver did not work; I had to use an older version. 2) My USB-C to USB Micro cable was defective (this also could have explained issue 1. I was working with a Mac and used Terminal to verify I was talking to the Konnected board. 3) During the App setup, I needed to use an older version of the Ethernet protocol. I opened a ticket with Konnected, and they were (as always) beneficial.

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If someone is living in the European Union and do not currently have an alarm but wanted a stand-alone system that connects to Home Assistant but also works when it is down, would you recommend that they build a new alarm system based on Konnect?

If so what sensors, keypads, and other accessories do you then recommend buying for Konnect in Europe or from China for shipping to the EU?

Can you suggest a kit with wired components that both look nice and work great with Konnect?

Ifnon a budget are there are commercial or retail products that we can find on the used market for cheap and use? Especially wondering about keypads which needs to both look good and work well.

Asking for a friend.

PS:,I just installed used the ”Alarmo” custom alarm system integration to make a DIY setup in Home Assistant with wireless devices (e.g. Z-Wave or Zigbee sensors and keypads), which works fine for the most time however the downside with Alarmo is that it depends on Home Assistant being up and running and working as it should, which makes it flexible but not always as reliable/stable. All and all I am happy with this Alarmo setup for myself, however i might not recommend it to someone who do not want to go the same DIY approach and fully depending on Home Assistant.

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@Miranda-GB can i suggest that you add these and many more other ESPHome-based products to the ESPHome ready-made projects page?

Also add more type of catagories there too:

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I tried all kinds of things getting it to work and finally, after 5h+ of swapping cables, installing drivers, etc. and an at least 45min ‘conversation’ with the AI Robot, I was finally offered to communicate with a human.

They contacted me by email, asking me:
“Did you remove the zone 6 wire while trying to flash?”

Why would I have done that?
Didn’t see it mentioned anywhere to “remove the zone 6 wire if it get stuck on ‘preparing firmware’ - it can prevent that.”

Solved the issue in 3 seconds!

P.S.:
They recommended flashing the legacy firmware :hushed:

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Hey all! I’m Nate, founder of Konnected and thrilled to finally be officially part of WWHA. Huge thanks to @Miranda-GB @frenck @jesserockz @balloob @MissyQ and team for everything that you guys do for Home Assistant, ESPHome, and the Open Home in general. I’m proud to be a part of it!

Konnected has been a big supporter of Home Assistant from the beginning, and nothing really changed with this announcement, except that we’re finally deprecating our original custom integration component in favor of our new ESPHome firmware which works oh so well with HA and now all of our supported platforms.

To answer a few of your questions/comments so far:

@chairstacker Sorry for the frustration! There is a mention of the “zone 6 must be open” issue on our KB here: https://support.konnected.io/flashing-konnected-firmware-software

@michaelhdmd Glad you got good support from us and got it up and running. Yes, we changed the LAN PHY in hardware revision 1.8 of the Alarm Panel Pro, so older versions use a LAN8720 ethernet type, whereas newer builds use RTL8201 ethernet type in the config.

@Hedda YES! The Konnected Alarm Panel Pro would work well for you. The Alarm Panel Pro can operate/implement a “Standalone” alarm panel (implementing the Alarm Control Panel component in ESPHome under the hood) which means it can alarm and locally trigger a siren or output even if HA is down. The caveat of this is that it can only know about sensors that are physically wired to the panel, so you cannot directly include Z-wave/Zigbee sensors like you can when HA/Alarmo is running the alarm logic. Both approaches are valid, depending on your goals. Konnected sells a variety of wired sensors and we ship worldwide, although any standard “dry-contact” wired sensors will work.
Regarding keypads, typically most people will use their phones, a wall-mounted tablet/touchscreen, or automate arming/disarming with presence so that a physical keypad is not needed. However, ESPHome does also support Wiegand keypads/readers so that’s an option if you want to DIY it. I’m looking into adding “official” support for Wiegand readers in a future app update.

Thank you all for the support and welcome, and I’m around if you have any questions or issues.

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Thank you for the quick answer! And yes, having a few physical keypads is deffinitly a must for WAF approval and installation at someone else who is not fans of mobile apps. So please do look into adding official support for a few different keypads and similar physical arming/disarming product options, remote dongles are also nice (which my father would not be able to live without at his house).

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Thanks for your response @heythisisnate

I was searching your website far and wide, this page didn’t pop up.

Might be useful to put the ’ Flashing tips and troubleshooting:’ on the install page at https://install.konnected.io/ or link to it directly from that page rather than - better: in addition to - the generic Help & Support Portal paged

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Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll reach out to the ESPHome team.

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@Miranda-GB They should deffinitly add Apollo devices too since they are WWHA certified, but would be nice if they could aslo add more stuff that are not WWHA certified as well.

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Konnected as a alarm system is limited compared to traditional systems. For example you won’t get a keypad. I’d suggest a traditional, but smart, alarm system. On the market you have Satel Integra and Ropam NeoGSM-IP that also work with HA out of the box (native integrations). They are proper security grade alarm systems and offer many more features for just a little higher price compared to Konnected

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Could not find native integration for Ropam NeoGSM-IP, only found integrations via MQTT for it (which is not the same as an native integration which means a built-in integration of at least a custom component that uses native method and do not rely on MQTT).

Satel Integra integration, SIA Alarm Systems integration (for Ajax security alarm system), Bosch Alarm, Ness Alarm, and AlarmDecoder looks all like proper native integrations that support ”Local Push” connections:

@heythisisnate Seems these are the main ones that Konnected have to compete with for the Home Assistant community, so if you can ”one-up” those by making your official Home Assistant integration better or easier as well as continue to use ESPHome and open-source your code then I think you got a winner here for this community in the long-run.

Regardless, suggest that you consider also making hardware for new ”green field” installations as well and not only focus on retrofiting, however then you probably need to sell your own enclosures, keypads, and sensors as well so an installer could buy a complete kit setup directly from you.

PS: For reference, ”Local Push” is the IoT classification which means best local connection for fastest respons:

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Ah, you’re right. MQTT that is. For me that is not a disadvantage as it is very flexible and you have full control on what’s integrated.
I was using Konnected to integrate my old “dumb” alarm system and it worked very well until the old system died. But I’ve replaced it with Ropam to benefit from alarm keypad, integration with external monitoring service etc. It works very well with HA as well (all sensors and outputs, 3 security zones and what have you). One thing that Konnected is not capable of is the EOL security for sensors.

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Hey @Hedda, I checked with the team and this page isn’t designed for the ‘Made for ESPHome’ devices as they are not ‘projects’ per say, they are more ‘off the shelf’ rather than build your own. Made for ESPHome devices can also have separate web flashers available too. Hope that helps!