First CES experience and community moments

Miranda from the Open Home Foundation takes us inside the Works With Home Assistant program: how devices are tested, why the badge matters, and how vendors—from startups to big brands—can get certified. We cover Zigbee vs Z‑Wave vs Matter, badge misuse, regional device coverage, and Miranda’s own fun automations.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Show notes for this episode are available at https://homeassistant.fm/HA219

Support the Podcast

Get early-access to episodes and an ad-free feed by supporting our Patreon.

https://homeassistant.fm/patreon

Share your story

We wouldn't be able to do this podcast without community members and home automation enthusiasts sharing their stories. To register your interest to come share your home automation journey, head over to homeassistant.fm and click share your story.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro

00:03:20 Miranda’s path to HA

00:08:00 CES stories and community

00:14:30 Moving program to Foundation

00:22:30 Fees, pushback, endorsement?

00:29:30 Guidance, safety, and testing

00:36:30 Zigbee, Z‑Wave, Matter realities

00:43:00 Big brands, IKEA, relationships

00:50:30 Cloud integrations, Genie

00:55:30 Miranda’s home and automations

01:03:30 Blinds, garden, robots

01:10:00 Regional coverage and filters

01:15:30 Badge misuse and enforcement

01:20:30 2026 goals and wrap‑up

This episode was made possible thanks to our sponsors

Home Assistant Cloud by Nabu Casa

Easily connect to Google and Amazon voice assistants for a small monthly fee that also supports the Home Assistant project. Configuration is via the User Interface so no fiddling with router settings, dynamic DNS, or YAML.

Zooz

If you're looking to upgrade your smart home - you can’t go past Zooz! Zooz offers a range of affordable and innovative devices, including water leak sensors, water valve controllers, smart plugs and scene controllers.

For the best prices on all Zooz products, head over to https://thesmartesthouse.com

Products Discussed

Home Assistant Connect ZWA2 (Z‑Wave radio): https://amzn.to/3MfPzsP

Hosts

Phil Hawthorne

Website

Smart Home Products

Twitter: @philhawthorne

Bluesky: @philhawthorne.com

Buy Phil a Coffee

Rohan Karamandi

Website

Smart Home Products

Twitter: @rohank9

Buy Rohan a Coffee

This episode contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click on one of them and make a purchase, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.