"My digital data is part of who I am": an interview with the maker of Vision
Not a developer, he built Vision with AI to protect his family. The maker of Vision on how it started, why privacy comes first, how he works with AI, and what he hopes the community will do with it.
He is not a developer. He works in marketing, has three kids, a house to renovate and very little spare time. Yet he built Vision, a screen-time supervision tool for Home Assistant, with the help of AI. We talked about where it came from, privacy, how he works, and what comes next.
How did Vision start?
With a very ordinary problem: the kids kept complaining that their computer was slow. I love tech. I'm not a developer, but I'm pretty comfortable with AI tools, so I gave it a go.
The very first version sped up the PC's startup and filtered dangerous websites: today, Vision's blocklist protects against some 143,000 domains known for spreading malware or running phishing scams. And that's what surprised me: the number of sites spying on us is huge. On each Requester's PC, Vision blocks around 120 connection attempts a day on average, across all categories, and the vast majority of them target advertising and tracking. Around 200 advertising and tracking domains are now blocked. That's when I knew I was onto something.
Then came screen-time rules. In our house, if your grade average drops below a certain level, no phone, no PC: you earn your screen time, a bit like a salary. All of it runs through Home Assistant and automations. Then, week after week, it was "what if I added this?": a small mobile app, an app for the TV…
Today it's no longer a personal hack; it's something that can be shared. I started from my own needs, and now I'm turning towards what other people need.
Who is Vision for?
Mostly people who already run Home Assistant, who care a bit about the security of their data, and who like deciding for themselves what happens at home. Families above all, but really anyone who wants to protect themselves.
Vision is a kind of guardian of the house. It filters what shouldn't be seen or read, blocks malicious sites and sorts websites into categories. It does three things: it sets boundaries, it measures, and it lets young people grow up somewhere safe, focused on what matters when it matters.
Take homework time: games and YouTube are off. They're kids; if they can play, they will, and that's normal. But if a teacher asks them to watch a YouTube video, you can open it, and it stays open for everyone because we filed it under a category we created ourselves, "learning resources". And all of this, categories included, can be automated. That's a big part of the point.
Why not just use Family Link or Microsoft Family Safety?
They're good apps, honestly very good, and I'm not knocking them. But once you know a bit about tech and you run Home Assistant at home, you have the power, almost the duty, to protect your family even better.
Google or Microsoft knowing us for advertising doesn't really bother me. But my personal data belongs to me: my digital data is part of who I am. I don't want to hand it over, and I don't want my kids handing theirs over without consent. That's why everything stays at home: no account, no cloud, no ads.
It also protects against the small threats, like requests that quietly leave a PC and feed data to people who aren't exactly trustworthy. And day to day, nothing gets harder: it was designed to be flexible and painless, kids included. Saying "no, that's not for your age" or "careful, this site is known to be malicious" becomes easy, because Vision relies on well-known sources: Cloudflare's filtering DNS, VirusTotal, and phishing databases.
Note: data and decisions stay inside Home Assistant. Vision only queries these services to check a website, plus a music service if you use one.
You're not a developer. How do you actually build Vision with AI?
I admire people who write everything themselves; I wish I'd learned it. I can write a few lines (HTML, PHP, YAML, Power Query), but it's not my job and time is short.
When Anthropic released Claude for coding a few months ago, I started with a small game, still in progress. And it struck me: it's like having a great team of developers in front of me, one that actually understands me (which is already something), and codes incredibly fast. What could I do with that? My first real project was connecting our boiler to Home Assistant. Test after test, it worked. That's when I realised I could go much further.
I act as the project manager: "here's what I've noticed, here's what I need, how do we do it?" I don't want the AI to do all my thinking for me. I want it to help me think, to tell me when I'm wrong, whether it hangs together, what's missing. It sparks new ideas and keeps me organised.
What surprised me was how easy it is. But you need to be well organised: ask it for a pink square in the middle of the screen and it will make one. It might tell you it's not a great idea, but it'll do it anyway. So you have to think your idea through, be ready to be challenged, and challenge the AI back to get the best out of it.
What's next?
Vision will keep moving, a little more slowly. We added music because we listen to it nearly every day at home and love sharing tracks. The next real step will be better Home Assistant dashboards; that matters a lot. For audiophiles, the goal is also higher-quality audio formats. And more interface polish.
What I'd love is for people to talk about it on the forums: what works, what doesn't, what they'd like, what they managed to build with it. We started from our own family's needs, but our family isn't unique: thousands of people need the same things. So share them. And if you're comfortable with the tools, build, send us new ideas, we'll test them. Show us.
Any advice for someone thinking about getting started?
Not long ago, Home Assistant was hard if you were starting from scratch. The team has worked hard to make it approachable. Automations and scripting can still feel off-putting; at first it looks like tinkering. In reality, it has become so easy that it isn't tinkering anymore.
With AI, and a bit of budget, because building something reliable takes real thought, it becomes very simple. Building a quality product that is reasonably secure is within reach.
To try Vision, visit the project page. The roadmap tracks progress. And if Vision helps you, you can buy me a coffee.