In the world of modern smart - and less smart - home appliances, interoperability between devices is often on fairly shaky ground, whether we're talking about robot vacuum cleaners or robotic lawn mowers.
Over the years, the most important tool for deep-end home automation enthusiasts has become the open source application Home Assistant, which offers integration possibilities for almost every imaginable smart home device.
However, a major problem with using Home Assistant has always been that the community typically has to hack together support for different smart devices on its own (so-called reverse engineering). And quite often, making something like a robot vacuum work with Home Assistant requires so much work that the project remains out of reach for most ordinary users.
But every now and then, a manufacturer manages to surprise in a positive way. This time was one of those moments.
Chinese company Navimow (also known as Segway Navimow) quietly released official Home Assistant support for its robotic lawn mowers earlier this week.
The company didn't stop at Home Assistant support when catering to home automation enthusiasts - Navimow also released official Python SDK developer tools for its robotic lawn mowers at the same time.
With the HA integration and official development tools available, the community can now create entirely new types of applications and automation solutions for controlling Navimow robotic mowers if they wish.
However, a major problem with using Home Assistant has always been that the community typically has to hack together support for different smart devices on its own (so-called reverse engineering). And quite often, making something like a robot vacuum work with Home Assistant requires so much work that the project remains out of reach for most ordinary users.
But every now and then, a manufacturer manages to surprise in a positive way. This time was one of those moments.
Chinese company Navimow (also known as Segway Navimow) quietly released official Home Assistant support for its robotic lawn mowers earlier this week.
The company didn't stop at Home Assistant support when catering to home automation enthusiasts - Navimow also released official Python SDK developer tools for its robotic lawn mowers at the same time.
With the HA integration and official development tools available, the community can now create entirely new types of applications and automation solutions for controlling Navimow robotic mowers if they wish.
