Home Assistant is the open-source heart of a private smart home: it speaks Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter, Wi-Fi and everything else through thousands of integrations, runs all your automations locally, and shows no ads because there is no company selling your routines. A global community maintains it, and it runs on a Raspberry Pi.
The setup is a project, not a purchase: you install it, update it, and think about your devices. People who make it their hobby never go back to vendor clouds.
