The Smart Home Platform You Actually Own
Most smart homes are a pile of apps that don't talk to each other. The lights are in one app, the cameras in another, the thermostat in a third, and half of them stop working the day a company decides to change its cloud. Home Assistant fixes that. It's open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first, trusted in over two million households worldwide, and it ties more than a thousand brands of devices together into one clean interface that runs on hardware in your own home.
VIP Smart Homes designs, installs, integrates, and supports Home Assistant systems for homes across the greater Seattle area. We are not the developers of Home Assistant, and we are not an authorized dealer of it. We're the integrators who set it up properly, connect it to the gear you already own, build the automations you actually want, and stand behind the result. The software is free and open source. What you pay us for is getting it right and keeping it running.
Your Whole Home, On One Screen.
This is a Home Assistant dashboard. Every room, every light, climate, security, media, and even live energy use, all in one place and laid out the way you actually live. We build yours around your home, not a template.
A Home Assistant dashboard, organized by floor and area.
Control Everything From Your Phone.
The companion app puts your whole home a tap away. Check the front door camera, see which lights are on, set the house to away, and get a notification the moment the garage is left open or the laundry finishes.
Everything is grouped the way you think about your home, by floor and by room, with quick summaries for lights, climate, security, and media right at the top.
It also handles presence detection, so the house can react when you arrive or leave, and your location is sent only to your own home, not to a third party.
Home Assistant Green. Small Hub, Big Brain.
For most homes, the hardware question has a simple answer. Home Assistant Green is a compact, plug and play hub that comes with Home Assistant already installed. Plug in power and ethernet, and the system is ready in about fifteen minutes. It sips power (roughly three watts under load) and disappears onto a shelf or in a rack.
Under the hood it's a quad core 1.8 GHz processor with 4 GB of memory and 32 GB of storage, a gigabit ethernet port, and two USB ports for expansion. Need Zigbee or Thread? We add a Connect ZBT-2. Running Z-Wave devices? A ZWA-2 handles that. One small box becomes the hub for your entire home. MSRP is around 199 dollars, though pricing varies by retailer and region.
We help you choose the right hardware (Green for most homes, or a more powerful server if your setup demands it), then we source it, install it, and configure it so you never have to think about it again.
Privacy. Choice. Sustainability.
Home Assistant is a project of the Open Home Foundation, a nonprofit built around three ideas that happen to be exactly what a good smart home should stand for.
Privacy. Your data stays local. Home Assistant talks to your devices on your own network and processes everything at home. Nothing is parked on someone else's cloud, and your smart home keeps running even when the internet does not.
Choice. You are never locked into a single brand's ecosystem. Mix Lutron, Sonos, Hue, Ring, Aqara, Shelly, and dozens of others, and swap any piece later without starting over. We make sure you can make informed decisions about your own home.
Sustainability. Devices keep working for years instead of being bricked by a discontinued app. The platform improves every month, and the hardware is built to last. A smart home you own is a smart home that lasts.
Brings Your Whole Home Together.
Home Assistant speaks every major language of the smart home. Matter, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and direct integrations with the brands we install every week, including Lutron lighting and shades, Sonos audio, Philips Hue, UniFi networking, and Ring.
Already living in Apple HomeKit, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, or Samsung SmartThings? Home Assistant works alongside them, so you can move over gradually at your own pace rather than ripping everything out at once.
Because this is what VIP Smart Homes already does, we can fold Home Assistant into the rest of your system. Lighting, motorized shades, audio video, networking, and cameras all working as one. That is where it stops feeling like gadgets and starts feeling like a home that just works.
Every Device, One Tap Away.
From a dimmer to a robot vacuum, every device gets a clean, consistent control. Here is a sample of the cards we build into your dashboards.
Design To Dashboard. We Handle All Of It.
Home Assistant is powerful, which is another way of saying it rewards setting it up properly. Here is what a professional install looks like.
Consultation And Design
We start with what you own and what you want the house to do. Then we map out the hub, the integrations, the dashboards, and the automations before a single thing gets installed. No guesswork, no surprises.
Hub Setup And Install
We source and install the right hardware, usually a Home Assistant Green, sometimes a dedicated server for larger homes. Cleanly placed, properly networked, and configured so it runs reliably from day one.
Device Integration
We connect your lighting, shades, locks, climate, cameras, audio, and sensors across Matter, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread, and direct brand integrations. The messy part, done right, so everything lands in one place.
Automations And Dashboards
Custom dashboards for phone, tablet, and wall panels, plus the automations that make the home feel effortless. Lights that follow the sun, away modes, notifications that matter, scenes for how you actually live.
Voice Control With Assist
Home Assistant includes Assist, a private voice assistant that can run locally. We set it up so you can control the house by voice without shipping every command to a cloud server somewhere.
Ongoing Support
We are your single point of contact. When something needs attention or an update is due, you call us, not a forum. Ask us about remote monitoring and service plans for peace of mind without lifting a finger.
The Difference You'll Actually Notice
Lights, shades, cameras, climate, audio, and locks in a single interface on your phone, tablet, or a panel on the wall. No more juggling a different app for every device.
Because the brain lives in your home, your lights, locks, and automations keep working even when your provider has an outage. Local control is the whole point.
No cloud account quietly logging when you come and go. Home Assistant processes everything locally, so the details of your home stay yours.
The software itself is free and open source. There is no monthly fee just to keep your smart home turned on. You invest in the setup, not a forever subscription.
Mix and match the best devices regardless of who makes them, and swap any piece later without tearing the whole system out. Your home, your choices.
DIY Home Assistant means you are your own help desk. With VIP Smart Homes, you have a local professional who designed it, installed it, and answers the phone when you need us.
The Honest Part. Worth Reading.
Home Assistant is open source software, and we think that is a feature, not a footnote. It is free to use, improved by a worldwide community every month, and not controlled by any single corporation. It also means it is always evolving. Updates roll out often, an occasional integration changes, and now and then something needs a small adjustment. In plain terms, it is excellent, but it will not be flawless one hundred percent of the time. That is true of any smart home platform, and it is exactly why having a professional behind it matters.
When we install Home Assistant for you, VIP Smart Homes is your main point of contact and is responsible for the service we deliver. If something breaks, you call us. Home Assistant is a project of the Open Home Foundation, which makes the software available freely but is not liable for the systems we build or the service we provide. We are.
And the system is yours. We hand over all of your login and access details, so if we are ever unavailable, you or another professional can make changes or get support elsewhere. You own your smart home, top to bottom.
Common Questions About Home Assistant
Is Home Assistant really free?
The software is free and open source, yes. There is no license fee and no monthly subscription required to run it. What VIP Smart Homes charges for is the professional work around it, the design, the hardware, the installation, the integrations, the automations, and ongoing support. You are paying for a system that is set up correctly and a local pro who stands behind it, not for the software itself.
Will it work perfectly all the time?
We will be straight with you. Home Assistant is powerful and reliable, but it is an open source platform that updates frequently, so it will not be perfect one hundred percent of the time, and neither is any smart home platform. The advantage of working with us is that you are not troubleshooting it alone. We monitor, maintain, and support the system, and we are your single point of contact when something needs attention.
Do I actually own the system?
Completely. The hardware is yours, the software is yours, and we hand over all login and access details when the job is done. If we are ever unavailable, you can make changes yourself or bring in another professional. You are never locked in, which is one of the best things about the platform.
What hardware do I need?
For most homes, a Home Assistant Green is the easiest and most affordable starting point. It is a compact plug and play hub with Home Assistant preinstalled, ready in about fifteen minutes. Larger or more demanding homes may benefit from a dedicated server. We recommend the right hardware for your home during the consultation and handle sourcing and setup either way.
Does my data go to the cloud?
No. Home Assistant is local first. It communicates with your devices on your own network and processes everything at home, so your data stays private and your home keeps working even during an internet outage. Optional cloud features exist for things like remote access and voice, and we set those up only if you want them.
Will it work with my Lutron, Sonos, and other gear?
Almost certainly. Home Assistant integrates with more than a thousand brands and supports Matter, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread, and Bluetooth, plus direct integrations for the systems we install constantly, including Lutron, Sonos, Hue, UniFi, and Ring. We confirm compatibility for your specific devices during the consultation.
Can you connect it to the rest of my smart home?
That is exactly what we do. VIP Smart Homes installs lighting, motorized shades, audio video, networking, and security every week. We fold Home Assistant into all of it so your whole home behaves as one coordinated system rather than a collection of separate apps and remotes.
Are you affiliated with Home Assistant or the Open Home Foundation?
No. We are an independent integrator that uses Home Assistant, the open source project, to build and support smart homes for our clients. We are not the developers, not an authorized dealer, and we do not use the Home Assistant logo. We simply think it is the best platform for a home you truly own, so we install it well.
A Smart Home On Your Terms.
Whether you are starting fresh or unifying gear you already own, we design and install Home Assistant systems that put you in control, keep your data home, and just work. Local, private, and yours.
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