Big Tech ruined the cloud, so we're renaming ours

Nabu Casa is renaming Home Assistant Cloud to Home Assistant Link to disassociate from the negative connotations Big Tech has attached to “the cloud” and to better reflect the service’s goals: privacy, optionality, and no vendor lock-in. Created in 2018 to make self-hosted Home Assistant easier to use and to fund long-term development, the service provides secure remote access without running the home system in the cloud. Subscriptions now channel the majority of profits to the Open Home Foundation to sustain paid staff and volunteer work. The rename addresses confusion - people sometimes assumed Home Assistant ran in the cloud or that the service was required for core functionality - so Link emphasizes that local control and device functionality remain intact even if a subscription lapses.

Technically and functionally, Link offers conveniences that are genuinely online: easier integration with Alexa and Google, faster online speech-to-text, encrypted online backups where only the user holds the key, and real human support. Recent backend work includes a migration to bare-metal servers for lower latency and improved responsiveness, plus new account and settings pages and security features. The announcement contrasts Link with typical big-tech clouds - optional, private, and nonprofit-funded versus required, walled, and data-monetized - invites community feedback, and plans to make the rename official in the December 2026 release.