We're heading to Canada! Apollo Automation is making the trip to Surrey, British Columbia for WhaleLAN Winter 2026, and we're bringing a pile of free swag from Apollo, Nabu Casa, the Open Home Foundation, and Homey. Whether you're a longtime Home Assistant enthusiast or just curious about smart home sensors, come find us and say hi.
What Is WhaleLAN?
WhaleLAN is a BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) gaming LAN event held in Surrey, BC at 9755 190 St, run by the same team behind LTX and the Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel. It's a community-driven event for PC hardware enthusiasts, gamers, and tech tinkerers who love getting together in person to game, build, and geek out.
WhaleLAN Winter 2026 takes place February 21-22, 2026, and it's shaping up to be one of the best yet. Hundreds of attendees pack into a massive venue, set up their rigs, and spend the weekend surrounded by some of the most passionate members of the PC and tech community. Exactly our kind of crowd.
We're Monitoring the Air Quality with the Apollo AIR-1
If you've ever been to a large LAN party, you know the air situation can get... interesting. Hundreds of people, wall-to-wall PC rigs generating heat, and a space that's working hard to keep up with ventilation. We thought it would be fun and genuinely interesting to bring our Apollo AIR-1 Air Quality Sensor and track live air quality data throughout the event. We hope the Methane sensor doesn't spike too often...
The AIR-1 measures:
- PM1, PM2.5, PM4, and PM10: particulate matter from dust, hardware, and everything in between
- VOC Index: volatile organic compounds from off-gassing electronics, cleaning products, and more
- NOx Index: combustion-related gases
- CO₂ (with optional SCD40 add-on): a solid indicator of ventilation quality in crowded spaces
- Temperature and Humidity: because thermal comfort matters when you're gaming for 24+ hours
Everything runs locally over Wi-Fi with no cloud required, and integrates directly into Home Assistant. We'll be sharing what we find, and it should make for some genuinely interesting data from a high-density, high-heat environment like a LAN party.
Free Swag from Four Amazing Organizations
We're not coming empty-handed. We'll have free swag to give away from four organizations at the forefront of open, local-first smart home technology:
Apollo Automation
That's us. We design and manufacture privacy-first smart home sensors right here in the US, in Versailles, Kentucky. Our products (including mmWave presence sensors, air quality monitors, plant sensors, temperature probes, and more) are built for local control with no cloud dependencies or subscriptions. Everything works seamlessly with ESPHome, Home Assistant, Homey, Hubitat and a few more. We're a small team on a mission to build high-quality, open-source IoT hardware that actually respects your privacy.
Certifications: Commercial Partners With The Open Home Foundation, Works With Home Assistant, Made For ESPHome, Works With Homey
Website: apolloautomation.com
Nabu Casa
Nabu Casa funds ongoing development of Home Assistant and the broader Open Home ecosystem. Their Home Assistant Cloud service (Nabu Casa subscription) provides easy remote access, voice assistant integration, and encrypted webhooks, making it simple to control your smart home anywhere while keeping your data at home.
Website: nabucasa.com
Open Home Foundation
The Open Home Foundation (OHF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the open-source smart home ecosystem. The foundation holds the intellectual property of Home Assistant, ESPHome, and related open-source projects, ensuring they remain community-owned and free from corporate capture. OHF champions the principles of local control, privacy, sustainability, and interoperability in smart home technology. These are values we at Apollo care about deeply.
Website: openhomefoundation.org
Homey
Homey, made by Athom, is a powerful smart home hub that brings together devices from hundreds of different brands and protocols (including Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, Thread, and more) all in one place. Apollo recently received our Works With Homey certification, meaning our sensors integrate seamlessly into the Homey ecosystem. Homey is a favorite among home automation enthusiasts who want broad compatibility without sacrificing local control.
Website: homey.app
Why We're Going to WhaleLAN
The WhaleLAN community is exactly who we build for. These are the people who care about their hardware, love tinkering, and don't settle for "good enough." The overlap between the PC enthusiast world and the Home Assistant/smart home community is massive. Smart lighting, automated desk setups, presence detection for gaming rooms, and energy monitoring are all common starting points for people who eventually go deep into home automation.
We want to meet you in person, answer your questions, show off some hardware, and hear what you're building. No sales pitch, just good conversation with people who love tech.
Come Find Us at WhaleLAN Winter 2026
Date: February 21-22, 2026
Location: 9755 190 St, Surrey, BC V4N 3M9
Tickets: whalelan.com
We'll be on the floor, so look for the Apollo Automation setup and come grab some swag. We'll be happy to chat home automation, show you our products, and share what the AIR-1 is reading in real time at the event.
If you're attending WhaleLAN and want to connect ahead of time, reach out to us on Discord or follow along on YouTube where we regularly share product updates and community content.
See you in Surrey!
Apollo Automation builds high-performance, privacy-first smart home sensors in Versailles, Kentucky. Our products are engineered for ESPHome and Home Assistant, with full local control and no cloud subscription required. Learn more at apolloautomation.com.
