We are at WhaleLAN this weekend.
The Apollo Automation booth is set up and live at Smash Champs in Surrey, BC, right next to the 8v8 computer setup. If you are at the event, come find us. We would love to meet you.
This is the first time we have shown up to an event of this size, and we wanted to do it right.
What to Expect at the Apollo Booth
Our booth is set up as what we have started calling a sensor petting zoo. The idea is simple. Most smart home hardware looks the same in a product photo, and a spec sheet only tells you so much. At our booth, you can:
- Pick up every Apollo sensor and actually hold it in your hands
- Watch them respond to motion, presence, air quality, and environmental shifts in real time
- See live Home Assistant dashboards pulling data from each product
- Ask the kind of questions you cannot really ask in a YouTube comment thread
You can play with the AIR-1, MSR-2, MTR-1, R PRO-1 PoE mmWave multisensor, TEMP-1, PLT-1 plant sensor, M-1 LED matrix, BTN-1 macro deck, our DEV boards, and more. If a product is in our lineup, it will be on the table.
Giveaways and Tournament Prizes
We are bringing free stuff. A lot of it.
Sensors, accessories, Apollo swag, and a few things we have not announced anywhere else. If you stop by the booth, there will be something to take home with you.
WhaleLAN tournament players also have a shot at Apollo gear on the prize tables. We will not spoil what is on the line, but if you are competing this weekend, keep an eye out for the Apollo logo when prizes get handed out.
Meet Koty
A huge shoutout to Koty, who set up the booth and is representing Apollo on the ground all weekend. If you stop by, Koty is the person to talk to.
- Ask the technical questions
- Ask the so-called dumb questions
- Ask about what we have in the pipeline
Koty has the answers and is genuinely one of the most enthusiastic people we have ever worked with on this kind of work. If you are an Apollo customer who has been around the community for a while, this is your chance to put a face to the name.
Thanks to the Partners Who Made This Possible
A trip like this does not happen in a vacuum. A handful of partners stepped up to help us pull it off, and we want to thank each of them by name:
- The Open Home Foundation. Apollo is the second official commercial partner of the OHF, and the foundation's work to protect local control, user privacy, and open standards is the reason any of this exists. They also sent gear and prizes for the booth and tournament tables.
- Home Assistant. The platform that runs the smart homes of just about everyone at WhaleLAN. The Home Assistant team contributed to the prize pool and we are grateful for the long-running partnership.
- ESPHome. Every Apollo sensor is built on ESPHome. The ESPHome team has been one of our closest collaborators since day one, and they are part of what is going onto the giveaway and prize tables this weekend.
- Homey. Apollo is Works With Homey certified, and the Homey team has been a generous partner for this event. Look for their gear in the giveaway rotation as well.
The fact that four of the most respected names in open source and privacy-first smart home tech all wanted to be part of this says something about where the industry is heading. People want devices they own. They want platforms they control. And they want hardware that does not phone home to a server they cannot see.
Why WhaleLAN
You might be wondering why a small Kentucky-based smart home hardware company is showing up at a LAN party in Surrey, BC.
The answer is straightforward. The crowd at WhaleLAN is exactly the audience we want to meet. These are:
- The tinkerers and DIY-ers
- The people who build their own water-cooled rigs from scratch
- The people running their own homelabs in their basements
- Exactly the kind of people who, once they discover ESPHome and Home Assistant, never look back
We started Apollo Automation because we wanted to build the kind of sensors we wished existed. Local. Open. Customizable. Genuinely useful. No cloud dependency. No subscription. The hardware does what you tell it to, and it keeps doing that for as long as you want to run it.
That story lands at WhaleLAN. It is built for this crowd.
Build, Learn, Automate
If you have never used an Apollo product before, the booth is a good place to start. Bring questions. Bring use cases. Bring the project you have been thinking about for six months but have not started yet. Koty and the team are there to help.
If you are already running Apollo gear, come say hi. We want to hear:
- What you have built
- What is working
- What is not
- What you wish existed next
A lot of our product roadmap has come directly from conversations exactly like that.
Build, learn, automate. That is the loop we love, and there is no better place to run it than in person, on a show floor, with a sensor in your hand and a live dashboard showing real data behind it.
Where to Find Us
- Event: WhaleLAN
- Venue: Smash Champs, Surrey, BC
- Apollo booth: Right next to the 8v8 computer setup
- When: This weekend
If you are at WhaleLAN, drop by. Take some pictures. Try the sensors. Grab some swag. Talk to Koty.
If you are following from home, we will be posting from the floor across all of our channels, and we are planning a full recap once we get back.
Just the Beginning
This is the first big event Apollo has appeared at, but it will not be the last. We are planning more conference appearances, community meetups, and live streams through the rest of the year and into the next.
If you have been wondering what we are about, what we build, and who we build it for, WhaleLAN is a chance to find out without buying anything first. Just stop by, say hello, and play with the petting zoo.
This is just the beginning.
See you on the floor.
Apollo Automation designs, engineers, and manufactures privacy-first, locally-controlled smart home sensors in Versailles, Kentucky. Every product features 100% local control with no cloud dependencies or subscriptions required. Apollo is a Works With Home Assistant partner, Made For ESPHome certified, Works With Homey certified, a BBB Accredited Business, and the second official commercial partner of the Open Home Foundation.
Learn more at apolloautomation.com.
