Local smart home this week: Schneider buys Shelly, and an Echo Dot and a Lenovo clock go local
The week of September 19-25, 2026 for local-first smart homes: Schneider Electric is buying Shelly, an Echo Dot and a Lenovo Smart Clock become local Assist devices, and more.
On this page
- Schneider Electric is buying Shelly
- A 2018 Echo Dot becomes a local Assist satellite
- The Lenovo Smart Clock 2 gets a way in
- An old Aqara hub becomes a Zigbee router
- Levoit’s Classic 300S humidifier drops the cloud
- Inovelli Thread switches: one owner’s congestion numbers
- Hue app 6.1.0: any button can do anything
One big story this week and a run of smaller ones. The smaller ones share a theme: people taking hardware the vendor has given up on and making it answer to Home Assistant instead.
Schneider Electric is buying Shelly
Schneider Electric agreed on September 24 to launch a voluntary public takeover offer for Shelly at EUR 70 a share, about EUR 1.2 billion, conditional on reaching 95 percent of the share capital, with closing expected by early 2027. The deal protects Shelly’s Bulgarian headquarters and staff for three years. Neither company said anything about the local API, the cloud or Home Assistant.
Local impact: none yet. My full brief covers what to watch and why I’m not changing any Shelly ratings.
A 2018 Echo Dot becomes a local Assist satellite
A Home Assistant community member published a project that turns the 2018 Echo Dot (3rd gen, model D9N29T) into a voice satellite that shows up in Home Assistant like an ESPHome device. It keeps Amazon’s echo cancellation, beamforming and wake-word engine, so “Alexa” still works as the wake word. The author says the Dot “never talks to Amazon”: the cloud services are stopped at boot and a firewall allows only local addresses.
The catch: it means opening the Dot and getting at the data lines on test pads inside to unlock the bootloader, and the author warns that step can brick it. You also need a Linux PC for the flashing tools. The 2019 and 2020 Dot refreshes are not supported, and the project has since widened in the other direction: as of 5 October its own list also covers the 2016 Echo Dot 2nd gen (RS03QR) and the 2017 Echo 2nd gen (XC56PY). The author is candid about the rest: it has been tried on exactly one unit of each supported model, his own, nobody has audited it, and the code, the reverse-engineering notes and the README were written by an AI. The code is on GitHub.
Local impact: more local. It’s the same idea as my Echo Show 8 reflash, on smaller hardware.
The Lenovo Smart Clock 2 gets a way in
An r/homeassistant post takes on a clock with no USB data port, motivated by the poster’s read that Google’s Assistant on these clocks is on its way out. Their root method needs no cable at all: the first app arrives through the clock’s own hidden browser, and it exploits a bug in the PowerVR GPU driver. On top of that they built a launcher called Helios. It turns the clock into a Home Assistant dashboard with an on-device “Okay Nabu” wake word, and it can act as a Music Assistant speaker.
Two details stand out. Nothing is flashed: a power cycle returns the clock to stock. Helios pairs with Home Assistant using a six-digit code and gets its own non-admin user, so no admin token sits on the device. Only one firmware build is verified, and ADB over Wi-Fi is open to anyone on your network until you turn it off. The code is on GitHub as smartclock2tool and Helios.
Local impact: more local, for a device whose voice assistant is changing under it.
An old Aqara hub becomes a Zigbee router
Another project, posted to the Home Assistant community, converts an Aqara M1S Gen 1 hub into a Zigbee router for Zigbee2MQTT by replacing the firmware on its Zigbee chip. It keeps the hub’s Wi-Fi, HomeKit, speaker and light working, and adds a custom Home Assistant integration. The code and instructions are on GitHub. It isn’t supported by Aqara.
Local impact: more local. If one is sitting in a drawer, it’s a free router. My Zigbee router roundup covers the buy-one options.
Levoit’s Classic 300S humidifier drops the cloud
A new ESPHome component replaces the firmware on the Levoit Classic 300S’s Wi-Fi module. You get mist level, target humidity, tank and water sensors, and the night light in Home Assistant, with no VeSync account. You have to open the unit and solder temporary wires for the first flash; after that, updates go over the air. The author says the change isn’t destructive and the original firmware can be backed up. The code is on GitHub.
Local impact: more local. I cover the Levoit Core 400S purifier, not this humidifier, and I haven’t tried the mod.
Inovelli Thread switches: one owner’s congestion numbers
An Inovelli owner running 12 of the White Series VTM31-SN Thread switches posted measurements rather than symptoms. Every switch was failing its clear-channel check on 14% to 115% of transmit attempts - the poster notes that anything over 100% reflects repeated retries on a single transmission. The house has about six Thread border routers, mostly Apple TVs and HomePods plus one Aqara hub. The poster suspects three causes: too many devices promoted to routers, running two Matter fabrics at once, and 2.4 GHz interference. They asked Inovelli directly which devices should be router-eligible; there was no reply when I read the thread.
Local impact: none, but it’s the clearest data I’ve seen on why a busy Thread network misbehaves. My Thread border router reliability guide covers the checks either side of it - which of your devices actually route traffic, and whether a second border router joined the same mesh rather than starting its own - but not channel congestion.
Hue app 6.1.0: any button can do anything
Philips Hue’s app update lets every button on every Hue switch use the same set of actions. On the Hue Dimmer Switch, the two middle buttons were limited to dimming. Now they can hold-to-trigger a scene like the others. It’s a small change, and it only matters inside the Hue app. Home Assistant already sees every press on these switches through the Hue integration, so you could map any button there before this update.
Local impact: none.
Sources
- Schneider Electric press release, 24 September 2026
- Home Assistant community, 21 September 2026: Echo Dot 3rd gen as a fully local Assist satellite
- r/homeassistant, 21 September 2026: Lenovo Smart Clock 2 runs a Home Assistant dashboard with local Okay Nabu
- Home Assistant community, 22 September 2026: Aqara M1S Gen 1 as a local Zigbee2MQTT router
- Home Assistant community, 24 September 2026: Levoit Classic 300S local control with ESPHome
- Inovelli community, 22 September 2026: Thread channel congestion across 12 VTM31-SN
- Hueblog, 23 September 2026: Philips Hue app 6.1.0 switch customization
Every fact above comes from these sources, checked Sep 25, 2026. A launch brief is written before hands-on testing; the "what I verified" box says what is confirmed and what is not.