Nabu Casa News

We now make the best repeaters

2026-03-31T00:00:00Z

This week, on the Open Home Foundation’s Toolbox website, you’ll be able to flash a new experimental repeater firmware to your Connect ZBT-2 and Connect ZWA-2. Just a heads up that these haven’t been tested in large numbers and are still considered experimental, so there may still be issues. A few of the Nabu Casa team have been testing them on the Z-Wave and Zigbee networks in their homes, and the results are impressive.

For us, the software our products ship with is just the start, and they gain features all the time… aging like fine wine 🍷. Just before I launch into the whole thing, this story was just one of the several stories in our latest edition of the Nabu Casa newsletter. If you have our hardware, and love all these feature updates, get subscribed to hear all the cool new things you can do with them!

Repeat after me

When we launched our second-generation Connect line, we put a lot of effort into optimizing their antennas and bases to maximize their ability to hear and be heard by devices around the home. We also designed the devices to look great in the home, and this new experimental firmware makes them the ultimate Zigbee and Z-Wave repeaters. If you’ve ever had that one part of your home where devices give you the most trouble, this might be your dark spot killer 🔦.

You might ask how a repeater can help, and it's all down to how Zigbee and Z-Wave were designed. They are both mesh communications technologies for smart devices, and give mains-powered smart devices the ability to pass along every message they receive to nearby devices. Battery-powered devices don’t act as repeaters to save on energy, and some mains-powered devices don’t always have the best antennas, making them less than helpful at repeating messages.

A scenario where a dedicated Zigbee repeater can make a big difference

That’s where a repeater can massively help your network, especially one designed to be excellent at sending and receiving messages. One member of the Nabu Casa team has used a Connect ZBT-2 to turn what used to be a 3-4 device hop to the 3rd floor, into a 2-hop trip. They report that the devices that used to drop out every couple of weeks have become as responsive as the devices next to their Home Assistant server 🚀. A nice extra touch for the repeater firmware is the ability to completely control the light on the top of Connect devices. So even if you don’t have a need for a repeater, they’re great smart candles 🕯️, which come in two unique sizes 😉.

Just a couple of helpful things to note: If you do choose to flash this experimental firmware onto your Connect device, don’t worry, you can always convert it back to its original coordinator/controller firmware via the Open Home Foundation’s Toolbox website. When in repeater mode, all it requires is a Zigbee or Z-Wave connection and power; no network connection is required. Also, as these turn the Connect devices into generic Zigbee and Z-Wave devices, they can work with any network, even if it doesn't have a Connect adapter (or even Home Assistant) at the heart of it. You can pair them to most any network by pressing the recessed button next to the USB port.

If you’re wondering when we’ll make a Thread repeater, due to the commissioning differences with Thread, it's a lot more complex to do this with our current technology. It would probably be a better option to make a Thread border router firmware, but we’re still exploring if this is possible.

To get started using this new experimental firmware on your Connect ZBT-2 or Connect ZWA-2, visit the Open Home Foundation’s Toolbox website, or read our Connect ZBT-2 or Connect ZWA-2 support pages to walk through getting your device set up as a repeater.

~Carl at Nabu Casa

One more step to ending e-waste

2026-03-23T00:00:00Z

Today, we’re announcing the start of Nabu Casa’s first refurb program 🎉! We’re starting in the US market with our partner AmeriDroid to sell refurbished Home Assistant Green systems, but we intend to expand to more regions and products… just give us some time as we’re working to do this right… more on that below. The sustainability of the smart home is a big part of our mission, and reducing e-waste by finding new homes for working devices is a good step in the right direction.

We don’t actually get that many returns… a side effect of making awesome, reliable, and fun products. So, you might need to act fast when the refurbished Greens are restocked. We’ll keep you posted on our next plans for the refurbishment program.

How it works

Sometimes people end up returning products because they just weren’t the right fit. These returned products are effectively as good as new, with maybe some very minor signs of use. That’s where our partner AmeriDroid will step in; they will check that returns have all the accessories, ensure all personal data is wiped, and that there aren’t any issues with the device. There are a lot of logistics and processes involved behind the scenes, so it's no small feat, but avoiding e-waste is always worth the effort.

AmeriDroid will be selling these refurbished Home Assistant Green’s for $20 off the normal retail price, which is a great deal for a device that can help you build the most powerful, private, and compatible smart home 🚀.

Thanks for the support

Many of us at Nabu Casa got into Home Assistant because we wanted to make the tech in our homes last longer, so we’re pretty excited to have set up this program. Thanks again for all your support, as everything you purchase supports the development of Home Assistant 🙏.

~ Carl at Nabu Casa

Changes to Home Assistant Green pricing

2026-01-08T00:00:00Z

UPDATE - April 24, 2026: Component prices continue to rise, and since writing this post, have raised the price again to keep Green funding Home Assistant development. Home Assistant Green’s suggested retail price is now $199 / €179.

In the next couple of days, you’ll likely see the price of Home Assistant Green increasing at local retailers. Like many organisations have been announcing recently, we’ve been hit by component cost increases. We need to raise the price to ensure that every purchase continues to fund the development of Home Assistant. Thanks again for your support of Nabu Casa and the Open Home Foundation 🙏.

It’s never fun to give this news, but it's just the reality of the current world. As you’ve probably seen in the news, it's mainly RAM (memory) prices that are driving up costs. Meaning the component price of building a Home Assistant Green has nearly doubled since we started making the device. Luckily, we’ve been able to avoid doubling the price of this awesome little box by working a bit smarter to keep costs down. We’ve also done some work behind the scenes to avoid needing to raise prices again in the near future.

We still long for those days when you’d buy something and the next year it would be so much cheaper you’d be kicking yourself for being an early adopter. Now the best advice seems the exact opposite: If there’s something you want or need, buy it sooner rather than later, as prices will likely continue to be volatile for the coming year.

Green is still the easiest way to get started with Home Assistant, but it’s by no means the only way. Home Assistant runs on some very affordable hardware, so if you’re having trouble getting a Green at a price you can afford, the Home Assistant documentation have a great getting started guide – you might have something just lying around that will allow you to run Home Assistant pretty well.

Get the most of Cloud in 2026

2026-01-06T00:00:00Z

First off, we’d like to thank you for your support over the last year. You are funding the development of Home Assistant and other Open Home Foundation projects. We don’t need investors or debt; we have YOU, and we get to build what you actually want.

New features for the truly private cloud

Ultimately, we want you to get the most out of your subscription, and talking to the community we know some of you are missing out. Since we don’t collect usage data, we don't know how you use Cloud — and that’s a good thing — so we’ll just recap all the new additions in case you missed one.

Offsite backups

At the beginning of last year, Home Assistant introduced an improved automatic backup system. A good backup strategy consists of 3-2-1: three backups on two media types, of which one is remote. To help make this straightforward to set up, at no extra cost to you, Home Assistant Cloud has added 5GB of space to store your latest backup.

Set up your automatic backups today. If the worst happens and your system breaks, you can just head to your Nabu Casa account to get your last backup. Since only you hold the key to unlock your backup, we can't see your data... but we can’t help if you lose that key, so keep it safe! 😁

Speedy cloud

We’re making Home Assistant Cloud even more responsive 🏎️! We've reengineered the nodes your systems connect through while you're on the go, giving them more resources and a big speed boost. This means a quicker, smoother secure connection to your Home Assistant system no matter where you are.

Streaming cameras and music

In late 2024, Home Assistant added better camera streaming via Nabu Casa’s servers. It made camera streams much more responsive and work in more places. We’ve recently extended this to another Open Home project, and you can use that improved media streaming with Music Assistant. Check out the latest Music Assistant update to learn how Nabu Casa is powering streaming your FLACs on the go.

Improved voices

Did you know Cloud can power speech processing on private voice assistants? We've also recently expanded the number of voices and languages. There are even new voice variants, like “whisper” or “friendly” — or even make your assistant sound angry when you forget to take out the trash 😡.

Hardware updates

Interested in hardware news? We have a new Nabu Casa newsletter 😎 for hardware updates, like Voice Preview Edition getting multiple wake words, and Connect ZWA-2 getting Wi-Fi and PoE support.