Big Tech ruined the cloud, so we're renaming ours
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
Nabu Casa renames Home Assistant Cloud to Home Assistant Link, rejecting Big Tech cloud practices.
Nabu Casa is renaming Home Assistant Cloud to Home Assistant Link to distance itself from Big Tech's data harvesting, lock-in, and required subscriptions. The service remains optional, private, and local-first. Profits from subscriptions fund the Open Home Foundation, supporting Home Assistant's development. Link offers encrypted remote access, speech-to-text, and backup storage. Nabu Casa emphasizes that the smart home works without Link, and users retain data ownership. The name change is planned for the December 2026.12 release, with community feedback invited beforehand.
What commenters are saying
Comment thread is split. One camp welcomes the rebranding but criticizes Home Assistant's lack of role-based access control (RBAC) and granular permissions for users, calling it a long-standing gap. Another camp argues complex permissions are unnecessary for domestic settings and that the current entity-based system suffices for most users. Some commenters suggest RBAC becomes critical as agents and broader deployments (e.g., hotels) expand use cases. A few defend Nabu Casa's prioritization of simplicity and UX over building what they see as a niche enterprise feature.