Tomorrow evening, the Open Home Foundation is hosting State of the Open Home 2026 at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and we're honored to be part of it.
Our co-founder Trevor Schirmer will be on stage alongside Carl Olof Albertsson from Nabu Casa in the "Building in the open with partners" segment of the program. For a small company from Versailles, Kentucky, standing on that stage with the people who build and maintain Home Assistant is something we don't take for granted. It's a reminder of how far this community has carried us since we started Apollo Automation in 2023.
What Is State of the Open Home?
State of the Open Home is the Open Home Foundation's annual event celebrating the open-source smart home community. This year's theme is "Building in the Open," and the lineup reflects that. Paulus Schoutsen (the creator of Home Assistant), Franck Nijhof, Laura Palombi, Kevin Ahrendt, Jean-Loic Pouffier, Melissa Thermidor, Missy Quarry, Matthias de Baat, and Marcel van der Veldt will all be speaking or presenting throughout the evening.
The full program runs from 18:00 to 22:30 CEST and covers topics including Home Assistant Labs, Sendspin, how partners are building alongside the foundation, and what's coming next for the open home ecosystem.
For those who can't make it to Utrecht, the Open Home Foundation will be livestreaming the main program starting at 19:00 CEST on their YouTube channel.
More details and the full agenda are on the official event page: sotoh.openhomefoundation.org
More Than a Conference
One thing that makes this event special is the format. Your ticket doesn't just get you into a conference hall. The evening starts at 18:00 with a casual dinner, and the main program kicks off at 19:30. After the talks wrap up at 21:30, there's time for drinks and networking until 22:30. You also get a welcome pack to take home.
What we're most looking forward to is the time between the sessions. Getting to sit down with the Open Home Foundation team, other commercial partners, community contributors, and Home Assistant users over dinner and drinks is rare. These are the conversations where ideas happen, where you hear what someone is building in their garage or what problem they haven't been able to solve yet. That informal exchange is where a lot of the best thinking in this community comes from.
Why This Matters to Us
Apollo Automation became the first ESPHome-based manufacturer to join the Works With Home Assistant program. Trevor serves as a rotating board member of the Open Home Foundation. We're one of only two official commercial partners of the foundation, and a majority of our profits from licensed products go directly to funding their work protecting Home Assistant, ESPHome, and over 250 other open-source smart home projects.
But none of that happened because we had some grand business strategy. It happened because we showed up, built things the community needed, and tried to give back more than we took. The Open Home Foundation and the people behind Home Assistant created the ecosystem that makes our products possible. Being at State of the Open Home tomorrow is our way of saying we don't forget that.
Get Your Ticket or Watch the Livestream
Tickets are limited, but if you're in or near Utrecht tomorrow, it's worth checking if any are still available. Dinner, drinks, the full program, a welcome pack, and an evening with the people building the future of the open smart home - all included.
Get tickets for State of the Open Home 2026
If you can't be there in person, the livestream starts at 19:00 CEST on the Open Home Foundation's YouTube channel. We'd love to see you in the chat.
Watch last year's State of the Open Home
See you in Utrecht, or online. Either way, we're glad to be part of this.
Apollo Automation builds high-performance, open-source smart home sensors and tools in Versailles, Kentucky. We're a proud commercial partner of the Open Home Foundation and the first ESPHome manufacturer certified under the Works With Home Assistant program. Learn more at apolloautomation.com.
