About us

Nabu Casa, Inc was founded in 2018 by the founders of both Home Assistant, the open source home automation platform, and Home Assistant OS, the operating system that turns your device into a smart home hub powered by Home Assistant. These projects have seen an immense growth and have helped shape DIY home automation communities around the world.

After being involved in the Internet of Things industry for many years, we realized that there is a need for a cloud service that aims to put users, their privacy and their data first. Such a cloud can only be built as an extension to a platform that does the same: Home Assistant.

With Nabu Casa we are building this cloud service and we’re calling it Home Assistant Cloud.

Our commitment to Home Assistant

Nabu Casa, Inc. commits time and resources into Home Assistant so this will be a shared success story. We want to improve Home Assistant, also for the people that are not customers of Nabu Casa, Inc.

The Team

Paulus Schoutsen

Founder of Home Assistant. He sees Home Assistant as the key to the open and private home that everyone deserves. Since 2013, he has grown Home Assistant from a script turning on the lights at sunset into one of the major open source home automation frameworks with a worldwide community.

Pascal Vizeli

Founder of Home Assistant OS, the open source solution to turn a system like the Raspberry Pi into a smart home hub powered by Home Assistant. Since it’s introduction, it has grown into the preferred installation method for the majority of all Home Assistant users.

Ben Bangert

San Francisco Bay Area programmer, best known for his open-source work creating and contributing to Python libraries such as Pylons, Beaker, Routes, and Kazoo. He got interested in home automation and began contributing to Home Assistant by starting a core rewrite to async. He currently works at Mozilla on cloud services.

Bram Kragten

From an early age interested in home automation. Part of the Home Assistant community for a long time, creating custom components and UI. Started contributing to Home Assistant core with UI editing support for Lovelace. Since then part of the frontend team, adding various new features.

Franck Nijhof

Founded the community Home Assistant add-ons project in 2017, integrating a wide range of applications to the ecosystem. Since then, he has been contributing all around the project, mainly in the corners of the ecosystem, and by streamlining the documentation. He often streams live while coding behind his desk on Twitch and YouTube for everyone to see.

Martin Hjelmare

Initially started out contributing to Home Assistant by his work on the MySensors integration back in version 0.11 (2016). Most contributors to Home Assistant core will know Martin for his endless patience on the code reviews he does. Martin fell in love with coding when he first tried Python. Another love is the Open Source idea with social coding transforming the world.

Ashton Lafferty

A long time support presence on the Home Assistant Discord, Ashton is the first line of support at Nabu Casa.

Joakim Sørensen

Joakim has been a core contributor for a long time working on the Supervisor panel and different bits of the frontend. He is, however, mainly known as the creator of the Home Assistant Community Store (HACS).

Stefan Agner

Open source enthusiast and embedded hacker, contributed to a wide range of open source projects such as the Linux kernel, U-Boot boot loader or Weston compositor. Uses Home Assistant with a variety of micro controller based sensor modules, just for fun. Works mostly on Home Assistant Operating System.

Erik Montnemery

An embedded C programmer by trade, he grew very fond of Python when he started contributing to Home Assistant. He’s been contributing mainly to the Cast and MQTT integrations, and at various other places around the Home Assistant core. Erik loves to tinker with embedded systems, both hardware and software.

Jesse Hills

Started out as a backend Rails developer, moved into DevOps, but always had a passion for DIY electronics and Home Automation. After becoming a maintainer of ESPHome as a hobby for some time, Jesse now leads the ESPHome project.

Matthias de Baat

Born in the year of the first The Simpsons episode. As the first user experience designer, his goal is to make Home Assistant easier to use and accessible for everyone. His browser bookmarks contain websites about gadgets, home automation and airsoft.

Mike Degatano

Originally a Java developer, Mike found Home Assistant when he got tired of remembering to say ‘Good Night’ to his voice assistant and decided to automate that. He’s been hooked ever since. He primarily works on supervisor and addons.

Dominic Griesel

Full of curiosity about how things work since he was a kid, Dominic is a mechanical engineer and self-taught programmer. Having stumbled into the smart home world by accident, he enjoys working on low-level code like IoT protocols. At Nabu Casa, he maintains Z-Wave JS, the best Open Source Z-Wave device driver out there.

Jacqueline Raaflaub

My roots live in the support area of software and hardware, I look forward to helping you in the exciting and great Nabu Casa world.

Paul Bottein

Paul has been building user interfaces for a long time. He created the Mushroom cards very quickly adopted by a large part of the community. He works with the Frontend team to improve the user experience. He also has a large collection of board games.

Marcel van der Veldt

Ever since I was a young kid, I have a passion for electronics, music, IT and everything in between. Over the years I did lose my hair but not my curiosity and this has evolved in many years of experience designing solutions which can actually help people automate or lighten specific tasks. Involved with Home Assistant for many years now contributing mostly to Hue and Z-Wave and the passion for both music and Home automation comes together in my side project Music Assistant. At Nabu Casa I’ll be mostly working on Matter, the next-generation industry standard in device interoperability.

Michael Hansen

Creator of the Rhasspy Voice Assistant and other open source voice technologies. An experienced software developer, holder of a Ph.D. in Computer/Cognitive Science, and believer in the Rule of Three, Mike wants to provide Home Assistant users around the globe with local voice control.

Uwe Bernitt

A product guy and hobby tinkerer entrusted with the mission to make Home Assistant hardware products even better and to up the connection to hardware vendors and the creators network. Uwe is quite proud of having led the day-to-day infighting between adblockers and a desperate multi-billion dollar industry that couldn’t accept what smart people called “the biggest boycott in human history” and would refuse any available middle ground. He enjoys travelling, hosting strangers at home and attending heavy metal festivals all over Europe.

Pierre Clement

I am a curious and passionate developer and DevOps with a love for music, sports, photography, open source, and, of course, home automation. Privacy is one of my biggest concerns, I join the infrastructure team with this in mind.

Melanie Vizeli

She loves and is enthusiastic about using smart homes created by her husband. Working in the back office as a commercial assistant for the CFO. Writing invoices, processing transactions, and ensuring everything go smoothly and is up to date on our bookkeeping.

Nikita Nikishin

Enthralled by local home automation, low-power networks, and all things DIY, Nikita contributes to the Zigbee Home Automation integration. He works primarily on connectivity and the integration of Nabu Casa wireless hardware.

Gabriela Moos

Still fascinated by her coffee machine flashing the living room lights when the cup is ready. Loves HA for its local control, privacy awareness, and the fact that anyone can contribute. A relatively new user of HA, she contributes documentation to help getting started.

Keith Burzinski

Like many of the folks at Nabu Casa, I have a deep, personal interest in all things tech-related – particularly home automation. As a kid, I was always interested in and tinkering with electronics; as I grew older, this interest expanded into computer systems, software and eventually network/Internet infrastructure. Over time, I wandered down the system administrator path, which eventually evolved into devops/SRE. After a number of years, a desire to get back to electronics and embedded development resurfaced and (naturally) I wandered into the world of Home Assistant and ESPHome. As I began tackling more and more projects with these tools, I began contributing code, as well. This work brought me to connect with Nabu Casa and now I am privileged to be a member of this wonderful team!

Madelena Mak

Madelena began tinkering her own Home Assistant dashboards while she was in hiatus recovering from her transgender transition surgeries. In the past two decades, she had designed a #1 iOS App Store app (Trillian), took hundreds of people on a hackathon road trip (StartupBus), made a few websites for the United Nations, and also created that monkey logo in Greasemonkey. Her work had been featured on StartUp Podcast by Gimlet/Spotify, the Nasdaq Blog, Wired Magazine, and more. As a product design lead, she is excited to combine her work in UX and product with her passion and education on architecture for the future of smart homes. She also likes to paint, cook, cosplay, and go to Star Trek conventions.

Robert Resch

Fascinated with technology and its “smart” applications since I was a kid. After spending most of my time optimizing and making things smarter, finally, it’s not just a hobby anymore- it’s my job! Big fan of privacy and local/no cloud smart home solutions. Whenever I’m not nerding out over smart home stuff, you can find me in the mountains.

Jean-Loïc Pouffier

Product guy for more than ten years, JLo is what Nabu Casa calls an outgrower. He fell into the home automation world by purchasing a few light bulbs, quickly wanted to do more with what he already had at home, and discovered Home Assistant in his journey towards privacy. Before joining Nabu Casa, JLo worked in the sustainable e-commerce space, making sure second-hand was seen as a first choice. As the first product manager of Nabu Casa, his goal is to make sure more people can experience the benefits of an open home. In his free time, JLo runs a small french YouTube channel where he teaches the basics of home automation.

Guy Sie

As a student, Guy was so fascinated by the rise of social media that he switched majors from computer science to marketing. He then worked at companies ranging from tiny start-ups to international ad agencies, always experimenting with tech in his spare time. Now, home automation has made his home one big experiment! At Nabu Casa, he is responsible for branding, marketing, and communication.

Jan Čermák

After an internal struggle over whether to pursue a career in chemistry or computers, Jan settled on the latter at the end of the college, where he also became fond of Python and Open Source – and the community around the both. A hardware tinkerer, passionate homebrewer and (mostly modern heavy psychedelic) music lover. Jan joined the team working on the Home Assistant Operating System and Supervisor.

Bruno Pantaleão

I have been fascinated by tech since I was a kid, from laptops to ‘Tony Stark’ gear. I don’t spend a day without a new automation idea or a package delivery with some small gadget I bought. When I find time to disconnect, I love going to the movie theater. I have a cinema subscription, so there is a high chance of finding me there at least once a week.

Missy Quarry

Missy grew up a tinkerer, from building their own model rockets as a child to earning a degree in diesel mechanics. They were introduced to Home Assistant in 2021 as a way to help control a DIY magic mirror they were building. A user voice expert and community advocate, Missy is the Community & Social Media Manager for Home Assistant. You will often find Missy out in their garden feeding their local murder of crows or losing themselves in the wonderous expanse of outer space.

Clelia Rella

Clelia brings her experience and unique perspective to her role as a marketing designer at Nabu Casa. With a foundation in architecture and years as a graphic designer and illustrator, she approaches her work with passion and creativity. Her background in architecture informs her understanding of space, proportion, and balance, which she translates into her designs with captivating shapes and colors. With a passion for arts and crafts, Clelia spends most of her free time drawing, crocheting, or starting new hobbies which help her to express her creativity.

Gord Cameron

In 2016, Gordon was going about a quiet life as a communications officer in local government when he stumbled across Home Assistant. Like any good hobby, it started with some smart bulbs and quickly spiraled into a fully connected home of the future. He ended up working as a comms lead for a couple of energy technology companies, but colleagues noted he wouldn’t stop telling them about smart thermostats and hand-assembled voice assistants. He is now getting to apply this passion at Nabu Casa, copywriting for the top projects redefining the open home.

Andy Gill

Home automation enthusiast, Open source fan, aviation geek, DIY’er. Stumbled on the power of a smarter home by installing cameras that could provide alerts whilst travelling. Started the home automation journey with an alerting doorbell and grew from there. Had a diverse aviation career dealing mostly in hardware in field engineering, customer support, sales, business and product management. At Nabu Casa, helping to develop our own home automation hardware to build on the success of Home Assistant, with the aim to further improve the smart home experience.

Nikola Kovic

Nikola’s family was the first in his city to have solar panels and he grew up making recycled paper, DIY ponds in the garden, and sheltering many animals. He later translated his love of nature into building sustainable supply chains and business development. He is very new to the concept of home automation, but loves the privacy and sustainability that Home Assistant brings to its users. Nikola is proud to support HA from behind the scenes and work with a great team to distribute Nabu Casa’s hardware worldwide.

Joost Lekkerkerker

Joost has been tinkering with computers and development since he was 10 years old and the love for technology never went away. That love now has also turned into a love for smarthome. What started as a distraction during his study turned into his job. Joost is one of the developers working on the core of Home Assistant. He gets a lot of energy from the project’s contributors, both from discussing ideas and helping them. In his free time he likes to cook, do fitness and practice Aikido.

Kevin Ahrendt

Kevin is the creator of microWakeWord and is enthusiastic about monitoring everything in a smart home. He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics and was a professor before joining Nabu Casa. Kevin works on using machine learning to improve local voice assistants and develops ways for anyone to easily use their smart-home data to anticipate, predict, and improve efficiency.

Jose Martin-Corral

While Jose is a psychologist by trade, he’s a tinkerer by passion, and a long-time Home Assistant user. Before joining Nabu Casa, he worked in recruitment and HR for startups that built software for developers and designers. As the first HR hire at Nabu Casa, he’s bringing his expertise to help create the teams and culture that will build the smart home of the future.

Annika Schulz

Annika is a dedicated user researcher focused on how people engage with technology in smart homes. As a PhD candidate in Human-Computer Interaction, she has extensive knowledge of smart home research and user behavior, especially about the social dynamics in a shared household with smart devices. Her work at Nabu Casa aims to understand users' motivations, needs, and concerns, ultimately enhancing the user experience by ensuring that products and services are human-centered and align with user expectations. Moreover, she is fascinated by acrobatics, loves specifically acroyoga and modern/contemporary dance, and enjoys listening to podcasts.

Krisjanis Lejejs

Friends know him as the smart home guy, tinkerer and the person who can help with computer-related issues. Krisjanis delved into Home Assistant and embedded devices in his teen years and found it a fascinating hobby to pursue. Avid self-hosting service enthusiast. With the experience in cloud services and full-stack development, he joined Nabu Casa to help infrastructure team with a goal of bringing smart home functionality available to everyone.

Carl Olof Albertsson

Carl is the Customer Service Manager at Nabu Casa. His lifelong interest in IT and gaming evolved into a passion for home automation after starting a family, where automation became both a necessity and a hobby. He has extensive experience implementing Zendesk across various industries, managing IT support teams, and streamlining customer service operations. As a long-time fan of Home Assistant, Carl is thrilled to now be part of the project he has admired for years, contributing to Nabu Casa’s vision of an open, privacy-focused smart home with a balanced commercial approach. Outside of work, Carl enjoys tabletop games, tinkering with homelab projects, and spending time with his family.

Daniel Bogisch

Finance professional with a deep passion for technology and innovation. Eager to leverage financial data to gain valuable insights, Daniel is dedicated to contributing to really any financial topic at Nabu Casa, recognizing it as a crucial backbone of the company. With a strong interest in the intersection of finance and strategy as well as financial forecasting and planning, he likes to bring the best out of Nabu Casa as an organization. Outside of work, he enjoys staying active and spending time outdoors, especially running, tennis and skiing.

Wendelin Peleska

Wendelin is a passionate frontend developer. At Nabu Casa he works with the Frontend team to improve the user experience. His passion for DIY projects and smart home led to exploring Home Assistant and ESPHome. Everything needs to be automated! Outside of work, Wendelin enjoys spending quality time with his family.

Darren Griffin

Darren has been a tech enthusiast his whole life but started tinkering with Home Assistant back in 2016, eventually becoming passionate about web development as a career. His core principle is to explore what excites him, obsess over the details, and keep learning before sharing his knowledge with others. Darren is driven to push the boundaries of the web, focusing on performance while also enhancing the web experience through animations and immersive interactions. When he’s not immersed in tech, you can find him either on the tennis court or at the pub.

Marcin Bauer

Marcin grew up on computer games and building LEGO Technics which developed his passion to create, appreciate good design and to constantly ask the question: “How does it work?”. His passion started with discovering fonts other than Arial, which then led him into the rabbit hole of web/brand design, front-end coding, Flash programming, animation, and much more… Today, Marcin uses his knowledge to work with people, share experiences, and create meaningful experiences and tools. He is part of the Product team at Nabu Casa, where he works on the Home Assistant frontend and other projects.

Petar Petrov

Petar created the SankeyChart card, along with a DIY battery system, to monitor and manage his home’s limited power. He has also been writing software since a young age but loves all kinds of engineering and wants to contribute to most areas of Home Assistant.

Víctor Igualada

Víctor is a Software Engineer passionate about automation and outdoor sports like climbing and surfing.

Miranda Bishop

Miranda’s first tech experience was in her teens; pulling up the carpet whilst her parents were out to run a new dial-up router. This enabled her to play World of Warcraft outside of parental controls until the phone bill came through… Since then, she’s worked in Marketing and Relationship Management for small businesses, communities, government projects and FinTech in the UK. Outside of work, you can find her doting on her Pembrokeshire Corgi, in her garden or putting off yet another embroidery project.

Laura Palombi

Laura has been a product geek for 15 years and a Home Assistant user for 8. She’s passionate about improving software, excited and humbled about being able to do it in such a powerful open source community. When Laura is not improving her smart home setup, she’s probably trying every single hobby on the planet.

Abílio Costa

A tinkerer since early age, Abílio began his home automation journey by hacking up a 433Mhz RF transmitter with Python scripts to control power plugs. Later, when he discovered Home Assistant, still in its early days, he fell in love with how versatile it was. As a software developer, he embraced the open-source and collaborative nature of Home Assistant and appreciated the opportunity to contribute to its growth. Abílio finally joined Nabu Casa so he could work full time on the Home Assistant core.

Oliver Lorenz

Oliver is a software developer driven by passion and a desire to give back to the world. He has seen, implemented and played through automation in all areas. Joining the Cloud team strengthens this passion to the next level. In his free time, he is part of the Freifunk community, is close to the CCC, and is part of a music and cultural festival. He always aims for 300% to achieve 150%.