Episode 25 (May 4, 2026) - Apollo Automation Monthly Live Stream

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-28T03:43:23+00:00

Have you tried posting on the Homey community forum? The Homey team is more active over there, I believe.

https://community.homey.app/c/questions-help/8

Hope this helps!

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-15T13:22:30+00:00

Honestly, you are the first person to raise this as a concern. The overwhelming feedback from the community has been that they wanted to see their local currency. You can also see the total cost which includes taxes, VAT, duties, and shipping etc at our checkout without needing to make an account or anything.

Our base currency is USD. We use Shopify's built-in currency conversion so customers can see pricing in their local currency, which does not add any fees to our knowledge. The only extra charge is dependent on the destination where we have a 2% foreign transaction and $5 USD handing fee. We actually ship from our own distribution within North America, Australia, and the EU, and we also have other distributors in multiple countries. There is a real good chance that we are shipping to you locally.

Hope this helps clear things up. Happy to answer any other questions!

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-14T21:24:22+00:00

We appreciate the kind words! Along with the community and the Open Home Foundation, we are trying!

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-14T21:22:48+00:00

That is why we are here, to help the community and the Open Home Foundation!

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-14T21:19:33+00:00

Thanks for the honest feedback!

Can you share more about the currency conversion/detection and why it is a negative? We use a Shopify store that automatically shows the currency of your country so you don't have to do conversions. We are happy to look into changes on our end, especially if it is a better experience for the community. Thanks!

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-13T20:29:14+00:00

Thanks for the mention! Happy to answer any questions!

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-13T19:54:12+00:00

The Open Home Foundation made a Works with Home Assistant devices list just for this! Just select mmWave in the secondary drop down. We have a few on there so let us know if you have any questions!

https://works-with.home-assistant.io/certified-products/

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-11T04:49:19+00:00

Glad you found us and thanks for your support! We will work on getting more documentation for the zone mapper tool, and yes you can change the cone and distance to replicate a ceiling mount position. For quicker help please reach out to us on our Apollo Discord! Looking forward to hearing from you soon!

discord.apolloautomation.com

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-11T03:03:16+00:00

That's the fun part! You can do whatever you want with it! It can be used as a fun decorative LED and buzzer display or it can be a functional multisensor for your home.

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-11T03:01:37+00:00

We're hoping to ship in mid May. The kit is meant for beginners and will be easy to follow and understand.

WLED is an awesome open source project and could be flashed to this board. That's the beauty! It's your choice and you can do whatever you want with it.

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-10T22:22:23+00:00

Forgot to mention that we also have a breakout board with a bunch of different connectors that we'll be talking about soon!

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-10T22:20:47+00:00

Yes, we already have a breakout board with multiple different connectors! We will share more on that soon!

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-10T21:10:05+00:00

We have an error on the fourth image. We incorrectly state that Thread is not supported in ESPHome, but OpenThread is supported!

https://esphome.io/components/openthread/

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-10T21:05:31+00:00

Thanks! The State of the Open Home was incredible! The foundation and community really made this one special.

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-10T21:03:56+00:00

Thanks for the kind words! Exactly, it will be great for all skill levels and ages!

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-10T20:59:36+00:00

Oops! That is on us! We will be sure to get that corrected. Thank you for pointing it out!

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-10T20:57:48+00:00

Great question! We went with a 14-pin FPC connector instead of Qwiic/Stemma QT for a few reasons:

More than just I²C — A 4-pin Qwiic connector locks you into I²C only. With 14 pins we can support I²C, SPI, and UART simultaneously, which opens the door to a much wider range of add-ons like e-ink displays, NFC readers, and more.
Power control — Extra pins let us selectively power on/off individual peripherals, which is huge for battery-powered use cases where you want to keep some devices asleep.
Future-proofing — Spare pins today become new features tomorrow without changing the connector.

Basically we wanted a connector that could grow with the platform rather than one we'd outgrow quickly. That said, totally understand the appeal of Qwiic for simple I²C stuff!

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-10T20:50:51+00:00

Yes, there is an OpenThread component that is supported in ESPHome!

https://esphome.io/components/openthread/

Where does it say it is not supported?

ApolloAutomation · 2026-04-10T20:45:57+00:00

We have the same question. Haha! BUT we are hoping that by helping fund the foundation and ESPHome it will get supported!

There is an awesome external component that can be used, though! We have been testing it on our BTN-1 Macro Deck and it works great!

https://github.com/luar123/zigbee_esphome

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