Does the box include Home Assistant?
Yes — a bundled copy runs from first boot, adopted quietly if you have none, or set aside if you already do.
Yes. Both the appliance and the default self-host setup run a bundled copy of Home Assistant from the moment they first boot.
If you don’t already run your own Home Assistant, you’ll likely never notice this happening — the bundled instance stays quiet (its own discovery and announcements are switched off) until setup brings it under Charyl’s management. You just see one question: how many devices were found, and whether to bring them in.
If you do already run Home Assistant, setup finds it, asks whether it’s yours, and, if you say yes, removes the bundled instance entirely and connects to the one you already have. Nothing about your existing setup changes.
Self-hosters can turn the bundled instance off entirely and run only their own, or none at all.
early access The mechanism is built and merged, but hasn’t yet been proven on real hardware end to end — treat it as new rather than battle-tested.
See Connect Home Assistant for the full walkthrough of both cases.
Didn’t find it? Ask the community
The board opens with the first early-access cohort
Conversations move here once the board opens to the first invited homes — until then, reach us directly.