smart home News - Page 2 of 33 - CNX Software

March 7, 2025March 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Home Assistant 2025.3 released with dashboard view headers, tile card improvements, better SmartThings integration

The popular Home Assistant has gotten an update with version 2025.3 that brings dashboard view headers, several tile card improvements, better map clustering, streamed responses from LLMs, and improved SmartThings integrations. Let’s have a look at some of the improvements starting with dashboard view headers which allow users to add a title and welcoming text to dashboards using Markdown and templates. You can also add badges next to the headers. Home Assistant 2025.3 also brings plenty of improvements to tile cards: Adding a circular background around tiles that perform actions, and leaving the ones that just show extra information without a circle Features of a tile card can now be positioned inline in the tile card (e.g. on/off button) New features: switch toggle, counter toggle (to increase, decrease, or reset a counter entity), animations when hovering over atile card Editor improvements for ease of use The new version of Home […]

March 6, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

STMicro STM32WBA6 2.4 GHz wireless MCU gets up to 2MB flash, 512KB SRAM, USB OTG, and more

STMicro had two announcements yesterday. I’ve already covered the launch of the ultra-low-power STM32U3 microcontroller family, so today, I’ll check the new 100 MHz STM32WBA6 Cortex-M33 wireless MCU family with 2.4GHz radios for Bluetooth LE 6.0, Zigbee, Thread, and Matter designed for wearables, smart home devices, remote weather sensors, and more. The STM32WBA6 is an evolution of the STM32WBA family introduced last year, especially of the STM32WBA54 and STM32WBA55 with many of the same features SESIP (Security Evaluation Standard for IoT Platforms) Level 3 security certification, but gets more memory and flash with up to 512KB of SRAM and up to 2MB of flash. The new STM32WBA6 family also gains a High-Speed USB OTG interface and extra digital interfaces such as three SPI ports, four I2C ports, three USARTs, and one LPUART. STMicro STM32WBA6 key features and specifications: MCU core – Arm Cortex-M33 at 100MHz with FPU and DSP Memory […]

February 28, 2025 by Debashis Das - 1 Comment

ESP32-C6-based Wi-Fi relay board features six 10A relays, supports Home Assistant, 3D printed enclosure

Seeed Studio’s XIAO 6-Channel Wi-Fi 5V DC Relay is a compact ESP32-C6 Wi-Fi relay board built around the XIAO ESP32C6 module which supports Wi-Fi 6, BLE 5.0, Zigbee, and Thread connectivity. Designed for remote control and automation, the device comes with pre-installed ESPHome firmware and features six independent relay channels, each supporting 10A at 30V DC or 250V AC, making it ideal for simultaneously controlling multiple DC or AC devices. The board also has two grove ports for sensors and actuators, making it suitable for home automation, industrial control, energy management, smart agriculture, and other applications. XIAO 6-Channel Wi-Fi 5V DC Relay Board Specifications Main module – XIAO ESP32C6 SoC – ESP32-C6 CPU Single-core 32-bit RISC-V clocked up to 160 MHz Low-power RISC-V core @ up to 20 MHz Memory – 512KB SRAM, 16KB low power SRAM Storage – 320KB ROM, and 4MB flash Wireless – 2.4 GHz WiFi 6, Bluetooth […]

February 26, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Silicon Labs MG26 development kits and SoCs are now available for Matter and multiprotocol Smart Home applications

Silicon Labs MG26 is a new family of Arm Cortex-M33 wireless SoCs designed for Matter or multiprotocol Smart Home applications that provide an update to the MG24 with more memory and storage, additional GPIO, a 4×40 LCD controller, and an integrated AI/ML accelerator. We first covered the new wireless microcontroller family in April 2024, but the company has now published a new press release announcing the general availability of the MG26 microcontrollers, and I also noticed some development kits were now available, so we’ll check those out in this post. Silicon Labs MG26 specifications A reminder of the SoC specifications with highlights in bold showing the improvements or differences against the MG24 family: MCU core – Arm Cortex-M33 @ 78.0 MHz with DSP instruction and floating-point unit Memory – Up to 512 kB RAM data memory Storage – Up to 3200 kB flash program memory AI/ML accelerator – Matrix Vector […]

February 24, 2025February 25, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

The OpenVoiceOS Foundation aims to enable open-source privacy and customization for voice assistants

The OpenVoiceOS Foundation, or OVOS Foundation for shorts, is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing open-source voice assistant technology and offers an open-source privacy-focus alternative to voice assistant by large companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple. One of the founders, Peter Steenbergen (j1nx), explained to us it all started when he read an article on CNX Software about Mycroft Mark II voice assistant hardware in 2018. He ended up being involved and created “MycroftOS“, later renamed to “OpenVoiceOS – Mycroft Edition”, as a Just Enough OS utilizing Buildroot and working on the Mark II. There were some tensions with the open-source community at some point, and the Mycroft project went south from there and the company had to close in 2023. Eventually, OpenVoiceOS took over the codebase of Mycroft A.I. and managed to merge lingering PR from the open-source community. Together with NEON A.I., they took over the Mycroft A.I. community […]

February 19, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Xcrhom T4S WiFi outdoor smart socket features power meter function, Tasmota open-source firmware

Xcrhom T4S Tasmota outdoor wifi smart socket

ESPHome is the favorite open-source firmware of Smart Home devices, but Tasmota is another option that’s been available for many years. We’ve just seen fewer products based on Tasmota (previously Sonoff-Tasmota) in recent years, but it recently showed up on a credit card-sized quad relay board, and I’ve just come across Maker Go’s Xcrhom T4S WiFi Outdoor Smart Socket that also ships with Tasmota firmware and sells on AliExpress for $24.88 shipped. The Xcrhom T4S exposes two sockets with dust and rainproof covers to be used safely outdoors, integrates a power meter, and the Tasmota firmware enables MQTT support, Home Assistant compatibility, and support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Xcrhom T4S specifications: Two EU sockets Max load – 3680W in total (16A x 230V) Rated Current – Up to 16A in total Power Input – 100 to 240V AC 50Hz Wireless – 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4; Tx power […]

February 17, 2025February 17, 2025 by Debashis Das - 16 Comments

HaLowLink 1 Wi-Fi HaLow gateway turns legacy devices into Wi-Fi HaLow clients via Ethernet, USB, or 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi

MorseMicro HaLowLink 1 Long Range Sub GHz Wi Fi HaLow

Morse Micro in collaboration with GL.iNet has recently showcased the HaLowLink 1 Wi-Fi HaLow gateway, which the company terms as Wi-Fi HaLow reference design and evaluation platform developed for long-range, low-power wireless connectivity for IoT applications. Built around the AzureWave AW-HM593 module with Morse Micro MM6108 silicon, it supports 1/2/4/8 MHz bandwidths. It features a MediaTek MT7621A dual-core CPU, Wi-Fi 4 module, dual Gigabit Ethernet, USB-C, and an SMA antenna connector, allowing it to work as a Wi-Fi HaLow router, access point, or extender. The device runs OpenWrt and provides an intuitive web-based UI and SSH/CLI configuration. OpenWrt also gives access to a web-based UI and SSH/CLI configuration. These features make this device useful for applications like smart homes, industrial automation, agriculture, and telecommunications. HaLowLink 1 specifications: SoC – Mediatek MT7621 dual-core, quad-thread MIPS1004K processor @ up to 880MHz System Memory – 256MB DDR3 (optional 512 MB) Storage – 32MB […]

February 7, 2025February 7, 2025 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

FOSSASIA 2025 – Operating systems, open hardware, and firmware sessions

The FOSSASIA Summit is the closest we have to FOSDEM in Asia. It’s a free and open-source event taking place each year in Asia, and FOSSASIA 2025 will take place in Bangkok, Thailand on March 13-15 this year. It won’t have quite as many speakers and sessions as in FOSDEM 2025 (968 speakers, 930 events), but the 3-day event will still have over 170 speakers and more than 200 sessions. Most of the sessions are for high-level software with topics like AI and data science, databases, cloud, and web3, but I also noticed a few sessions related to “Hardware and firmware” and “Operating System” which are closer to what we cover here at CNX Software. So I’ll make a virtual schedule based on those two tracks to check out any potentially interesting talks. None of those sessions take place on March 13, so we’ll only have a schedule for March […]