More devices, more choice: celebrating a massive year for certification

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If you’re ever in need of a device that works great with Home Assistant, well, I have just the program for you. Works with Home Assistant is our certification program that ensures devices work seamlessly and locally, all with brands that back them up.

Did you know that this year the Works with Home Assistant program has certified 12 partners across 12 months? That’s more than were certified in the two years since the program launched in 2022! The full list of devices is insanely long now (luckily, we made it searchable). To make all this happen over just one year, a lot of important things have been happening behind the scenes.

Moving to a non-profit foundation

In August 2024, the Open Home Foundation took over Works with Home Assistant. This helped reinforce that this program is not a commercial venture: it exists solely to connect our users with brands that support the foundation’s core values of privacy, choice, and sustainability.

When we moved it over to the foundation, we also took that chance to beef-up our processes, with robust legal contracts that ensure every partner who joins the program formally commits to things like offering users long-term support and easy updates.

It’s all about the devices

When we started the program we certified brands, but now we certify devices. This means you know exactly which sensors, switches, or other gadgets have been rigorously tested by us to ensure the best experience with Home Assistant. Each certified device has to work locally, without the need for cloud subscriptions or control.

We can now certify in phases, rather than overwhelming our testers with a truckload of devices in order to launch one partner. Also, if a manufacturer has one device that is cloud-controlled, it doesn’t blacklist any remaining items they have that could operate perfectly well locally. It sometimes means that sometimes your favorite devices aren’t part of the first wave of certification but, trust us, the partners check the comments 😉.

Making it easy to find certified devices

Here’s a conundrum: the more products that are certified, the harder it is for you to see and find them. The good news is I think we’ve cracked it!

Last week, we published the first version of our new searchable certified device list. Previously, you’d have to hunt around for info by checking the integration page or digging through launch blogs to see if a device was certified. Now, certified devices are kept up to date in one central, easy-to-use location, with extra information on the region they’re available in, the protocol we’ve certified them under, and notes about any secondary functionality we’re still working on.

So many (useful) columns!

The badge had a makeover

Every certified device earns the right to display our badge on its packaging, proudly announcing it Works with Home Assistant. If you’re not part of the program, you’re not allowed to use the Home Assistant logo. We used to have different versions of the badges depending on whether the device used Matter, Zigbee, or Z-Wave, and so on, but – let’s be honest – they were overcomplicated and impossible to actually read on a box!

Since the badge is such an important signal when you’re browsing products, we decided to simplify it and focus purely on that mark of quality. Now we have just two versions: a color badge and a monochrome design that are easier to read on any packaging.

We love to see the new badge being used IRL!

Companies of all sizes

For 2025, our goal was simple: we wanted both the big names and passionate community projects to be able to join. Yes, we’re thrilled to have major smart home players such as Shelly and Reolink committing to the program, but it’s equally important for us to connect with smaller, community-built projects – the start-ups or developers who keep open source at the heart of everything they do, like AirGradient and Apollo Automation.

This commitment to inclusivity is a big reason why we keep the annual fee for joining the program deliberately low, at only 500 CHF (per partner, not device) per year. We want to ensure being part of Works with Home Assistant is achievable for everyone who shares our vision.

Some of our team visiting the Apollo booth at IFA Berlin in September.

Improving testing

Testing hasn’t always been perfect – we knew we needed to make improvements, and the community has been amazing in helping us find things we need to look at. Like everything we do, we learn as we go, we iterate, and we improve. Previously, everyone was testing in their own way, but now we’ve standardized the way we test and give feedback to partners. This means testing is more consistent, exacting, and able to handle higher volumes – one of the reasons why we’ve been able to increase the number of devices we’ve certified so radically!

A lot of devices that come across our desks don’t pass certification, and it’s often due to organizations not fully understanding the requirements of joining. While this can vary greatly depending on the device and protocol, it was clear we needed to be more transparent. So as well as publishing our Works with Home Assistant Working Group Resolution, we’re also publishing further testing information: this sample testing report for a simple smart plug shows you the process we follow.

Keeping Home Assistant on the bleeding edge

Because we get to see and test new devices in advance, and receive feedback from our certified partners as part of the process, we have a sneak peek into what vendors have in mind for 2026 and beyond. This allows us to look at our product roadmap and see where we need to realign with innovations in the market. By testing today’s devices, we’re guiding tomorrow’s Home Assistant features!

Spot one of the certified cameras in our State of the Open Home segment

What can be controlled in Home Assistant

A core aim of the program is to ensure all certified devices have their “key functionality” available within Home Assistant. So how do we decide what aspects are controllable in Home Assistant and what doesn’t make the cut?

  1. Key: First, we look at the functionality as a whole. Let’s use a door lock for example. The door should lock and unlock from within Home Assistant. That’s key functionality, get it? 😉
  2. Secondary: If the lock also chimes when it locks or unlocks, we think of that as “secondary” functionality. We recommend that the manufacturer has it as an “exposed feature” in Home Assistant, so you can turn it off during quiet hours for example, but it wouldn’t block certification.
  3. We have to look at what’s actually supported by the open standard that we’re testing against too. If a feature is not currently supported by the specification, there’s no way for the manufacturer to actually implement it. This is one of the major challenges in certifying against ‘younger’ specifications such as Matter.

We use our best judgment on this, but we also want your feedback, because everyone has a slightly different point of view, even within our team and testers – so look out for our user research requests, or please share your thoughts in our comments below!

Connecting with our community

For all this talk of testing, Works with Home Assistant is primarily about people and partnerships! As a foundation, we’re focused on making sure the program stays deeply connected with the community it serves, both online and in person.

We’ve been stepping up our presence at meetups and events around the world, so we can share the latest developments and gather your valuable feedback. From gigantic trade shows like CES in Las Vegas to small, local get-togethers, you can expect to see us there! We also want to do this online, so you can ask partners questions on streams, or in comments – keep an eye out for more of this in future.

San Diego Meetup

On to 2026

So that was 2025 in a (big) nutshell. As for 2026, we want to kick it off with some wonderful Zigbee partners we’ve been working really hard on – particularly after the awesome launch of Connect ZBT-2. Even though Zigbee is one of the longest-established protocols, it’s actually one of the hardest for us to test and certify because so many devices operate outside the official specification. This means our team and partners do a lot of prep to get them to a testable state – but in doing so we’re driving big improvements in functionality for everyone!

We also want to improve coverage globally, so, regardless of region, everyone who uses Home Assistant has a good range of certified options to choose from. This means we’re actively seeking partners who will cover regions outside of Europe and North America for everyday essentials like smart plugs and lighting.

As ever, everything coming up will be covered right here – so stay tuned for updates… and here’s to certifying many more devices in 2026! 🎉🥳🎊

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2025/12/09/wwha-2025-recap
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If you’re ever in need of a device that works great with Home Assistant, well, I have just the program for you.

Great might be overselling it. The requirements are very minimal. Eve got certified despite its Android app being Google Home only. This app is required for access to any settings beyond the standard Matter controls.

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Sh!te! I was told Eve is one of only two manufactures shipping matter devices not totally trappend in a companies walled garden… Now I read your lines and think matter is the enshittifaction certification :page_facing_up: :poop:

We all know this (or not?) and sonoff even puts nice charts showing what their matter device can do over matter (almost nothing beside on/off) and that even the network state is only available with cloud/app/account… :put_litter_in_its_place:

Big tech like google, apple, samsung and co did apparently everything right protecting their walled gardens and guarantee even more data flow to their servers with the friendly help of CSA… :moneybag:

Also funny (or sad?) to see this on their site: :point_down:

What’s required

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While cloud connection is mandatory for commissioning matter devices by specification! :thinking:

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sadly, cloud is also required for installing HAOS.

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And even to update! But still differently to most matter devices that mostly make manufacture apps (some even with ads - virtually all with trackers) and some cloud account (providing personal identifying information) necessary. :person_shrugging:

Not to mentioned a potential remote ■■■■ ■■■■■■ included in all matter devices for your convenience security! :lock:

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Please consider adding an additional rule aso to get certified is device can not require the device manufacturers own apps to be installed or configured, as such apps may be removed from Apple and Google app stores in the future which makes the device useless.

Nuki is an example here which got a Matter device certified, yet it requires that you first install the Nuki app to generate the QR code needed for Matter commisioning. That means that Nuki Matter device can never be reinstalled if the Nuki app is removed, which we known can happen if a company closes or is aquired.

Nuki or whoever makes their app in the future could also start requiring cloud login to use their app. Having such a clause in the rules would prevent such rugpulls from happining. Because if the commisioning of a device is not a key functionality that need to follow compliance rules for certifications then that really needs to be made very clear.

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Or does the usually rug pull! :dash:

soon powered by matter :muscle:

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To add a constructive suggestion: I really wish that Matter supporting vendors were required to expose their additional features as Matter nodes in their custom cluster. That way, Home Assistant support at least could be added by volunteers. Eve does not do this.

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Which is wishful community thinking. None of the bigtech like apple, google, Samsung would support such an standard because it will challenge their ecosystems and walled gardens. That means their revenue and data streams would be at risk which will finally challenge their existence :scream:

Please note: Matter is first and foremost made by the industry to guarantee profits for the industry :warning:

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Hey there, could you give me some insight into what features are missing from which Eve devices? I’ll happily go back to our tester and the team at Eve to make sure we look at this.

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The “Works with Home Assistant” label is starting to concern me.

The Open Home Foundation’s projects, support, and advocacy stand in stark contrast to the smart home alternative driven by surveillance capitalism. You should never be the product—whether the products or services you use are free or paid.

Does “Works with Home Assistant” drive this concept?

I would expect the single identyfing mark to be placed on those products identifies if it is Local or Cloud support. Incentives matter. If there is no distinction HA Users will just choose based on the label and not the connectivity. I feel there should be more push toward Fully Local support. Its OK for product to have cloud only to be certified but this label should help the goal of moving vendors toward local support.

Current label has a house with a circuit.
Why not add a cloud with a circuit for cloud based devices.
Anything other than throwing up hands and saying “they were overcomplicated and impossible to actually read on a box”. Maybe the color and no color label addresses this or maybe there is future plan?

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That’s not completely correct. Soon the eve motionblinds speed will be adjustable in home assistant by using custom clusters. And most of Eve products don’t need the app for setup. Adaptive shading is something unique for the Eve app. But these things can also be achieved quite easily and better in Home Assistant. And using schedules in the Eve app does not really make sense in my opinion. We have HA why put schedules on the product itself.

Maybe some things like turning off the led on a motion sensor. But I think if you can provide a list of things you would like Eve are willing to implement these custom clusters. But unfortunately the ‘majority’ of platforms will not use the functions.

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My personal main pet peeve is having no way to adjust Eve Dimmer’s dimming thresholds.

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While it may offer short term profits, it will not in the long term. It would be like a company trying to sell electricity and the appliances. Only their appliances work with their electricity. This is just not sustainable. They will need to support a more open approach. None of the walled gardens can or do support everything that even the simplest of smart homes needs.

The only quest is how long will this take?

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Or like selling some $2000 smart fridge which at later stage turns out to be a bill board with the purpose serve your family ads in your kitchen? :cook:

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Bigtech can’t complain, matter was crafted to their wishes and is enough glue to hold everything together beside allowing companies to harvest data across network/devices not even sold by them. From what I understand if you “bridge” your apple (hub) matter devices to google they will take the data stream happily :money_mouth_face: For the customer that is sold as “compatibility”…

Enshittification will be faster and win the race - no questions asked! :speak_no_evil:

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I didn’t even think to consider that.

Man, even more reason to start detangling myself.

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The marketing just worked! Not to blame nabu casa / OHF but them taking part in CSA and advocating probably legitimatized the whole matter enshittifaction even more in the eyes of HA users… :person_shrugging:

Normally all bells should ring if Google, Amazon, Apple, Samsung and other big tech “work” together (gang up?) to bring a new standard to their products users :put_litter_in_its_place:

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Streaming is on the move back to the old cable model
internet in the US is both horrible and expensive with limited options.
It is always sustainable if there is no other choice.

i mean, companies sell water in a bottle. why is this necessary? Because if you make the free options worse or unattainable you will pay whatever you need to get what you need/desire.

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I heard a lot of good things about Eve, and I saw them get the Home Assistant certification, so I was happy when they released the first Matter over Thread dimmer. Once I set it up, though, I found that it only dims the lights a little, and that the dimming thresholds are only accessible via their 1.8⭐ app that requires a Google Home hub.

Aside from Eve, I have Aqara’s door sensor and Nanoleaf’s light bulbs. The sensor was easy to set up, it is completely local, updates over Thread, and it just works. It has an extra button that Aqara said would become exposed to Matter but never has been, but that’s ok.

Nanoleaf, being an early adapter, had a lot of trouble getting Thread to work reliable, but has managed to get it into a decent state, eventually. It does require an app to update them, though, which is a big downside.

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How I understand the matter specs you need to contact the cloud for initial commissioning. This is usually done by using a phone which contacts ether google or apple servers (depending on your walled garden) :wilted_flower:

Only after the cloud sends an OK back (blockchain tech, yea! :chains:) you are allowed to make use of the device you spend money :+1:

expected. See the sonoff charts which allow on/off + scene control and hide everything else in the ewelink (sonoff) cloud/app :cloud::rocket:

Almost all matter device do enforce their app/cloud/account - it’s kind of the selling point getting matter certified in the first place :trophy:

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