Home Assistant Yellow Discontinued: What a Successor Needs

The Home Assistant Yellow hub has been discontinued by Nabu Casa, the company behind the Home Assistant platform. The decision follows slower sales and supply‑chain challenges that made ongoing production difficult.

Launched in 2021, the Yellow was built around a Raspberry Pi CM4 module, supporting up to 8 GB of RAM and 1.5 GHz quad‑core Cortex‑A72 CPUs. It featured Power‑over‑Ethernet (PoE) support and native Zigbee, Thread, and Matter radios, but its single‑protocol radio stack limited simultaneous operation of multiple wireless standards.

Users and community members have outlined several improvements for a potential successor. They call for increased memory (16 GB or more), a faster CPU with at least six cores, and support for NVMe storage and AI accelerator cards. A dedicated GPU or neural‑processing unit would enable local inference for video and AI tasks, relieving the host CPU and RAM from heavy workloads.

Broadening wireless capabilities is also a priority. A successor should be able to run Zigbee, Thread, Bluetooth, Wi‑Fi, and Z‑Wave concurrently, rather than requiring firmware flashes or external dongles. Faster, multi‑antenna radios would improve range and reduce interference, making the hub a true central hub for all smart‑home protocols.

Finally, Nabu Casa would need to provide a streamlined onboarding experience, comprehensive documentation, and long‑term software support that mirrors the current Yellow’s update cadence. Strong marketing and clear communication could help revive interest and ensure the device’s longevity in the home‑lab and commercial markets.