Opera GX Gets Smart Home Integration

The latest version of the gaming-focused Opera GX web browser can integrate with smart home systems based on MQTT, including Home Assistant, Node Red, and Homebridge.

“We’re launching Opera GX Smart Home, and it’s going to completely change how you think about your browser,” Opera’s Mateusz Rzempała writes in the announcement post. “We’ve basically given Opera GX a key to your smart home, allowing it to communicate with all the other connected devices in your setup. For the first time ever, your browser is no longer just a window to the internet, it’s an active, responsive part of your setup.”

Opera GX Smart Home is currently in preview, so you need to enable MQTTs support in the browser’s Early bird interface, connect it to an MQTT broker, and then grab Opera’s Smart Home extension from GitHub, and follow the instructions there. But once you’ve configured all that, you can control smart devices in your home and, even more interesting, use those devices to control how Opera GX looks and works.

“This is a two-way street,” Rzempała explains. “This whole thing open source, [and] we’re not just giving you a feature, we’re giving you a toolkit.”

Opera provides a few examples of how one might integrated Opera GX with their smart home devices:

• Automate your privacy: That pesky roommate or parent who walks in without knocking? Set up a door sensor to instantly trigger the Panic Button the moment the door opens. Your secret browsing is safe.
• Sync your room: Your room’s RGB lighting can now perfectly sync with your Opera GX theme colors. Maximum immersion, unlocked.
• Movie mode: Hitting play on a movie in your browser can now automatically dim your lights, close your blinds, and tell your smart speaker to shut up.
• Go completely custom: Want a bright red “Do not disturb” light to turn on automatically when your CPU usage hits 90%? You can do that.

Opera GX Smart Home will evolve on its own, of course, but it’s as likely that community-created automations will deliver the most interesting functionality. You can see those on Opera’s Discord channel and on GitHub.

You can download Opera GX from the Opera website.