Home Assistant is an open-source home automation project developed by a worldwide community of very clever people, with a strong focus on performance, reliability and protecting your privacy. If you’ve spent any amount of time researching smart home tech and the world of the “Internet of Things”, chances are, you will have seen a reference to Home Assistant somewhere, partly due to the vast number of system integrations it can support.

​Home Assistant has long been a powerful force amongst smart home aficionados, but it is sometimes criticised for being too complicated for the “average Joe” due to the product’s heavy reliance on code (YAML) for its configurations. However, over the past year or so, the developers of Home Assistant began moving a lot of this configuration to the web UI in an effort to greatly simplify the system – for all users. Thanks to this effort, tasks which used to be technically demanding can now be accomplished with the click of a few buttons.

Today, Home Assistant has reached a significant milestone in user-friendliness, and it’s only getting better. Combine this with an ever-growing list of supported smart home platforms, advanced automation tools, blazing fast performance and a rapid development lifecycle, it can arguably rival the features and capabilities of any commercially available product in this space.​

​In this article, we want to highlight some of the reasons why we think Home Assistant is such a fantastic product, and discuss some of the unique features it brings to the modern smart home… ​

Vera has released a brand new, fully customisable dashboard for their mobile apps. The changes are still in the beta stages of testing but you can become an early adopter if you want to give the new dashboard a spin right now (see links below).

Some of the key features include;

• Configurable scenes, cameras and device lists for faster one-touch access
• Simple drag and drop re-ordering of elements
• Customisable background image
• Easy access to your most recent alerts and house modes

Everything on the new dashboard is now more neatly presented and takes up less space, making things more easily accessible at a glance. 

To learn more or to become a member of the Vera Mobile Beta Test Program, follow the links below;

• Android Beta Program
• Apple iOS Beta Program
• Vera Mobile User Forum

We've been running with the new version since its beta release about two months ago and we’re very pleased to announce that this is the most stable and performant UI7 ever! The list of bug fixes and enhancements is vast and you can get full details here. A worthy upgrade for sure.

​From our perspective though, the most exciting Vera news in recent memory hasn’t been about company acquisitions or UI7 improvements, it’s been about the amazing contributions made to the platform by Patrick H. Rigney; a.k.a. rigpapa (as he’s known in the Vera community).

​Patrick has single-handedly redefined the way we use Vera through a collection of ingenious software addons (plugins) which will transform your humble controller into a home automation beast! All of his excellent plugins are available via the Vera app store and directly from this github repo. However, without a doubt, the one plugin every Vera user needs to know about is, Reactor.

Reactor is the most essential plugin Vera has ever known. It can help you build powerful smart home logic effortlessly and without needing to write a single line of code. After setting up your first Reactor device, you will wonder how you ever lived without it.

​The kinds of things possible with Reactor are limitless and we are yet to encounter a home automation scenario it couldn’t handle. You can read more about its capabilities in this wiki and there’s now also a dedicated YouTube channel of instructional “how-to” videos to help get you started (with more promised in time).

​We’re often asked about the differences between Vera and Fibaro Home Center and which system is the best. Fortunately, both VeraPlus and Fibaro Home Center 2 are among the most popular Z-Wave gateways in the world, so either product will deliver great results. They do, however, differ in several ways so it's worth understanding the key differences, especially if you're in the market for a new Z-Wave controller and need some help deciding which device will best fit your needs. 

InControl HA is an affordable, simple-to-use Z-Wave home automation software solution for the Windows environment. Version 4 of InControl HA has been in full-swing for a little while now so we thought we'd present a mini review of a few of our favourite features. This latest version is mostly evolutionary - building on the success of previous releases - but it does introduce a number of fixes and enhancements which will be sure to please both new and existing users alike. 

There are loads of Vera compatible control apps available; some better than others. To find the best of the bunch, you could try to wade through this very exhaustive selection, or, simply choose from our recommended short list below:-