Home Assistant Puts Smart Home Control On Your Wrist Via Wear OS

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Tech-savvy users of Google’s Home or Nest smart home ecosystems can now take complete control over those from their wrists. That’s based on the recently reported announcement of the Home Assistant app for Wear OS. The app, while still in beta, brings a number of features to the table.

Not least of all, Home Assistant on Wear OS acts as a kind of centralized hub for smart homes. That’s not just for Google Home or Samsung SmartThings either. But for any number of different ecosystems.

That also means it’s a bit more challenging to use. And it requires a user-made server to run all of the commands for those ecosystems. With many users opting to integrate with Raspberry Pi, it’s effectively a DIY solution meant for the more technically inclined.

Why does this matter if Home Assistant, Wear OS or not, is for the tech-savvy?

Now, Home Assistant has been available since 2019. And — in terms of functionality, for Wear OS — it offers up controls for smart homes just as one might expect from a native app. But, of course, which isn’t currently available via a native app on Wear OS. Such as from SmartThings or Google Home. At the very least, not without a lot of groundwork in adding specific functions via a smartphone. And better native solutions from the smart home product OEMs aren’t necessarily currently going to land with Wear OS 3.0 either.

That is, in fact, what makes the appearance of this app unusual. Even if it is in Beta at the moment.

The controls are added on Wear OS via “entities” which act as quick toggles for both smart home product features and for custom routines. And those tiles follow Wear OS 3.0 design language too. In addition to allowing for user-set icons for their favorite functions for easier, quicker access to their most commonly used smart home functions.

2021-12-22 15:06:56