Local smart home this week: Apple's HomeView arrives, Jasco buys Zooz, and LEDVANCE joins Works with Home Assistant
Local smart home news for October 10-16, 2026: Apple's Home Collection, Jasco buying Zooz, 116 LEDVANCE Matter devices, Withings+ for new API accounts, and a local tado bridge.
On this page
- Apple announces HomeView and the Apple Home Collection
- Jasco buys Zooz
- LEDVANCE joins Works with Home Assistant with 116 devices
- Withings now requires Withings+ for new API accounts
- Shelly’s Presence Gen4 goes on sale in the US
- freedo replaces the tado Internet Bridge with an ESP32
- Zendure SolarFlow batteries get a local zero-export integration
Seven items this week. Three got their own briefs; the new ones worth knowing are 116 LEDVANCE devices certified for Home Assistant and Withings putting its free API behind a subscription for new accounts.
Apple announces HomeView and the Apple Home Collection
Apple announced HomeView, a $299 screen with Siri AI, and a lineup of cameras, a doorbell, a lock and thermostats built with LG and Schneider Electric. The lock and thermostats are Matter compatible; the cameras aren’t called that anywhere in Apple’s release, and I sorted out the rest in the Apple Home Collection brief.
Jasco buys Zooz
Jasco, the company behind GE Enbrighten, announced on October 13 that it has acquired Zooz, and Zooz says its hardware, factories, team and prices aren’t changing. I’m not moving any Zooz pick over it; the details are in the Jasco and Zooz brief.
LEDVANCE joins Works with Home Assistant with 116 devices
LEDVANCE, the company behind the OSRAM SMART+ range, joined the Works with Home Assistant program on October 13 with 116 certified devices: bulbs, spots, downlights, ceiling and wall lights, floor lamps, LED strips, outdoor floodlights, the SMART+ Plug and wall switches. Every certified device uses Matter over Wi-Fi and joins Home Assistant’s Matter integration directly, with no hub and no cloud service needed to run.
Local impact: more local. It’s a large catalog of mainstream lighting that Home Assistant has certified to work locally, from a brand sold in ordinary hardware stores.
The catch: these are Wi-Fi devices, so they won’t strengthen a Thread mesh, and I haven’t run any of them.
Withings now requires Withings+ for new API accounts
Withings’ developer portal says Withings+ becomes required on its free “Start for Free” API plan from October 12, 2026: accounts created after that date need the membership to share health data with apps on that plan. Accounts created before the cutoff aren’t affected. Home Assistant’s Withings integration works through exactly that kind of free developer app, and its docs now carry the same subscription note.
Local impact: less local. The integration was already cloud polling, and now a new scale or sleep tracker owner pays a subscription to get their own data into Home Assistant at all.
Shelly’s Presence Gen4 goes on sale in the US
Shelly put its USB-powered mmWave presence sensor on sale in the US on October 15 at $84.99, with Matter over Wi-Fi or Zigbee as switchable radios. Its own spec page disagrees with the launch copy on how many people it tracks, which is one reason I’m waiting; more in the Presence Gen4 brief.
freedo replaces the tado Internet Bridge with an ESP32
A community developer released freedo, a local stand-in for the tado Internet Bridge that talks to tado V3+ heating devices over 868 MHz using an ESP32 and a CC1101 radio, connected over serial. It runs as a Home Assistant add-on plus a HACS integration, with no cloud or internet connection needed. Older tado generations might work but are untested.
Local impact: more local. Until now the local route for V3+ was HomeKit through tado’s own bridge, which my thermostat guide covers; this removes the bridge.
The catch: the author calls it experimental and says to keep manual heating control as a backup, and the tado app won’t work with it by design.
Zendure SolarFlow batteries get a local zero-export integration
A HACS integration, hassio-zendure-restapi, controls Zendure SolarFlow batteries over Zendure’s local zenSDK HTTP API, with zero-export control every second and no cloud account or MQTT broker. The author runs a SolarFlow 3000 Mix AC+ daily; the 4000 Mix AC+, 2400 AC/AC+ and 1600 AC+ are listed as supported, and the 800 series, 2400 Pro and 4000 Mix Pro as experimental. It reads meters including the HomeWizard P1 and the Shelly Pro 3EM.
Local impact: more local, for SolarFlow owners on the supported models.
The catch: you have to switch on the local API in the Zendure app first, and the Hyper 2000, Hub 1200/2000, AIO 2400 and Ace 1500 have no local API, so they can’t use it.
Sources
- Apple Newsroom, 13 October 2026: Introducing Apple Home Collection
- Business Wire, 13 October 2026: Jasco Acquires Zooz
- Home Assistant blog, 13 October 2026: LEDVANCE joins Works with Home Assistant
- Withings developer portal, October 2026: Withings+ required on the Start for Free plan from 12 October 2026
- IoT For All, 15 October 2026: Shelly launches Presence Gen4 in North America
- Home Assistant community, 12 October 2026: freedo, a local coordinator for tado V3+
- Home Assistant community, 16 October 2026: Zendure RestAPI integration
Every fact above comes from these sources, checked Oct 16, 2026. A launch brief is written before hands-on testing; the "what I verified" box says what is confirmed and what is not.