Builder Updates
What’s happening?
peaq is integrating Home Assistant — the world’s largest open-source smart home system with more than 260,000 active installations, supporting more than 2,500 devices, services, and platforms from top companies such as Google, IKEA, Bosch, Asus, Acer, Phillips, Epson, and more.
Why is it important?
The integration enables teams building apps and DePINs on peaq to tap into the vast pool of devices connected by the global Home Assistant community and empowers people to earn rewards with their smart home hardware
What does it mean for the community?
With thousands of devices now primed to run as part of dApps and DePINs on peaq, the stage is set for a massive inflow of network activity and value being created in the peaqoverse, which benefits all of its stakeholders. And on top of that, your smart home is now just a few easy steps from being linked with the peaq network and earning you rewards via various DePINs.
“Alexa, do you work for the CIA?”
“No, I work for Amazon,” replies the soft voice from the speaker on the tiny device nested on the bookshelf. It’s hooked to almost everything in the house, from lightbulbs to the robot vacuum to the thermostat, and knows this space better than its residents.
In case you are wondering, this really is what Alexa, Amazon’s smart assistant, started replying to worried users after a video of her refusal to reply about her ties with the CIA went viral. Why would a device you purchased work for anyone other than yourself? That’s a brilliant question, and one that perfectly sums up the problem with letting Big Tech into your house.
Yes, it’s cool to have an entire ecosystem of connected devices working in unison to make your life as comfy as it gets, but what about your privacy? That’s exactly what Home Assistant, the world’s most-popular home automation platform, is all about. As you know, peaq is also all in on bringing control back to the people, so going ahead and making Home Assistant compatible with the go-to blockchain for real-world applications was a no-brainer.
As the number of connected devices grows by the day, more and more of them end up in our homes. From lights going off on command to an air conditioner turning itself to your preferred temperature depending on the time of the day, these devices bring the comfort up a notch, through both the sheer wow factor and the actual utility they offer. People obviously appreciate it, seeing how 672 million homes are expected to be smart by the end of 2027, and so does Big Tech, rubbing its hands at the thought of all the yummy data to harvest through such devices.
The idea behind Home Assistant is simple and fair: You should be able to own your smart home devices and manage them without third-party intermediaries. The open-source platform enables you to manage all sorts of smart home devices, from sensors to cameras, from one place, running locally, usually on a mini-computer like Raspberry Pi. This approach promotes privacy and security through transparent, community-driven initiatives. You may already be seeing the overlaps with peaq’s raison d’être – or ‘reason for existing’.
Since its inception back in 2013, Home Assistant has grown to become the largest open-source smart home platform in the world. With more than 260,000 active installations, it boasts more than 2,500 integrations with devices, services, and platforms. These include all sorts of things, from smart home devices by Google, IKEA, and Bosch to weather services and text-to-speech platforms. Just to give you a better idea of its vast compatibility, here’s a list of just some device types Home Assistant currently supports:
The integration brings all of this to peaq. Now you can install Home Assistant on your Raspberry Pi, connect it with peaq, and link any compatible devices with it, resulting in a blockchain-secured smart home. As a trial run, we hooked an air quality filter to a mini-computer with a peaq ID and had it store the data on-chain. Head here for the set-up guide and code.
That’s right, your smart home can now run on Web3. And that’s not even the coolest thing about this integration.
The integration with Home Assistant opens a plethora of opportunities for teams building real-world dApps and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs) on peaq. Since Home Assistant is so massively popular, there are hundreds of thousands of devices hooked to the platform globally — and DePIN builders will now be able to tap into this gigantic pool of hardware without having to code the integrations from scratch.
This makes peaq immensely more versatile as a DePIN backbone, linked with an entire universe of devices already up and running through one all-encompassing integration. For a DePIN, this means lightning-fast scalability and massive reach, which is crucial for both a successful early growth and long-term prospects.
Furthermore, the integration will enable the Home Assistant community to do more with their devices, joining various DePINs to provide useful services – and earn, such as collecting weather, noise pollution, or mobility data. The community would be able to earn rewards in crypto for helping to make the global data market more decentralized and fair, with smart algorithms making sure to keep the data they choose to share properly anonymized.
As our homes grow more and more connected, it’s crucial to make sure that they don’t turn into glass houses, open to the prying eyes and ears of the Big Tech 24/7. peaq’s integration with Home Assistant will deliver just that, removing the contradiction between privacy and connectedness and setting sail for a future where every household is a stakeholder and earner in an economy running on smart devices. Economy of Things, one could say.
