Useful answers before you explore.
What Home Advisor does, what it needs, and where its current pre-release boundaries are.
Product and availability
Is Home Advisor available to buy?
Not yet. Home Advisor is an owner-tested pre-release touchscreen prototype. Alert-history storage and offline-travel/reconnection checks remain open; no customer release package is available.
Does it require a phone app?
No. A normal browser is used for first setup, and routine settings are available on the touchscreen. No developer account or smart-home hub is required for the current experience.
Does it need the Internet?
Fresh weather, UV, modeled AQI, and pollen information require access to selected public providers. Valid saved data may support temporary outages within freshness limits. Too-old or unsafe evidence cannot authorize a positive timed recommendation.
Does local-first mean the device never contacts an online service?
No. The settings, recommendation engine, display, and alerts run locally, but public forecast providers receive the approximate location and request information needed to supply their data. See Privacy & data .
Health and environmental guidance
Does it measure indoor air quality or mold?
No. It does not contain indoor temperature, humidity, CO2, VOC, or particulate sensors, and it does not detect or diagnose mold. Household comfort values are configured assumptions.
Does it diagnose allergies or asthma?
No. Selected pollen types and breathing caution are household preferences. Home Advisor provides environmental guidance, not diagnosis, treatment, or a health-safety guarantee.
Is the pollen forecast hourly?
No. Pollen information is daily and limited to the provider’s supported types and horizon. The product does not invent an hourly pollen trend or treat unavailable data as low.
Is the air-quality value an official monitor reading?
No. The default U.S. AQI outlook is modeled and labeled as such; it is not a reading from an official monitoring station.
Does it detect mosquitoes?
No. It estimates weather-based conditions associated with mosquito activity. It does not count mosquitoes, predict bites, or forecast disease risk for a property.
Operation and updates
Will it open the windows or control my thermostat?
No. It advises the household; it does not know window position or control HVAC equipment. Smart-home integrations are not part of the current product.
Are the energy savings measured?
No. Any savings value is an estimate based on entered electricity rates, HVAC and comfort assumptions. It is not a bill reading or a guarantee.
Do I need a Google Pollen key?
It is optional for completing setup, but pollen forecasts remain unavailable until a valid user-supplied key is saved. The key belongs to the user’s billing-enabled Google project; provider charges or quotas may apply.
Why is a microSD card required?
The validated, release-matched card holds signed resources and is the planned consumer update path. A blank card or a firmware file alone is not enough for normal operation.
Can I install an update through the browser?
No. The design uses a signed package on the required microSD card, checked locally at startup. No customer download is published yet; the device does not automatically download updates or accept browser firmware uploads. See Updates .