Home Assistant Green price, smart-device security

Nabu Casa raised the suggested retail price of Home Assistant Green to $199 in April, after first announcing a pricing change on January 8. The company said higher component costs — especially memory prices — forced the increase, and Home Assistant’s product page now lists the device at $199 in the United States and €179 in Europe. The price move landed at the same time as renewed discussion around smart-device security, with social posts on May 20 pointing readers to lists of hacked brands and recent breaches affecting connected-home products. That discussion mixed two separate issues: vendor or platform breaches that exposed customer data, and device-level vulnerabilities that can let attackers take over cameras, hubs or other internet-connected gear. (nabucasa.com) ### Why did Home Assistant Green get more expensive? Nabu Casa said on January 8 that it had been “hit by component cost increases,” and updated that notice on April 24 to say the price had risen again to $199 / €179. The company said RAM prices were a main driver and that the component cost of building a Home Assistant Green had “nearly doubled” since production began. Home Assistant’s storefront now shows the higher recommended MSRP and says local prices can vary by region and retailer. (bleepingcomputer.com) The device remains positioned as the entry-level, plug-and-play way to run Home Assistant locally, with 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB of eMMC storage. ### Which smart-home brands have actually been hit recently? ADT was one of the clearest recent examples in the home-security category. BleepingComputer reported on April 27 that a breach affected 5.5 million people, after data tied to ADT customers was exposed following an intrusion claimed by the ShinyHunters extortion group. (nabucasa.com) Ring remains a separate case. (home-assistant.io) BleepingComputer reported in 2024 that Ring customers received $5.6 million in a privacy settlement tied to allegations the company failed to implement adequate security protections, and the same outlet later reported that viral claims of a May 28, 2025 “mass hacking” event were tied by Ring to a backend update bug rather than a confirmed breach. (bleepingcomputer.com) ### What counts as a “hack” in smart-home coverage? CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog tracks software flaws that have been exploited in the wild, but a vulnerable product is not the same thing as a confirmed company breach. In smart-home coverage, reports often blur together account takeovers, leaked customer databases, insecure cloud backends and exploitable firmware flaws in devices themselves. (bleepingcomputer.com) Consumer Reports has separately documented security weaknesses in connected-home products, including video doorbells sold by major retailers, showing that risk can also come from low-cost white-label devices rather than only the best-known brands. ### Why does Home Assistant keep coming up in these discussions? Home Assistant markets Green as a locally controlled smart-home hub and says purchases support the Open Home Foundation through Nabu Casa. (cisa.gov) That local-first positioning often makes Home Assistant part of the response when users discuss reducing dependence on cloud-linked platforms after a breach or privacy controversy elsewhere. The company’s own pricing notice also pointed buyers to cheaper self-hosting alternatives, saying users may already have hardware capable of running Home Assistant if the new Green price is out of reach. (consumerreports.org) ### Where should buyers look next? CISA updates its vulnerability bulletins weekly and maintains the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog for flaws under active attack. For Home Assistant Green specifically, Nabu Casa’s pricing notice from January 8, updated April 24, and Home Assistant’s current product page are the clearest sources on price and hardware details. (home-assistant.io) (cisa.gov) (nabucasa.com)