Remote access possible via HomeKit integration?
Remote access possible via HomeKit integration?
Dear lemmy community,
I am currently in the process of migrating my current Homebridge setup to HA OS on a Pi4 4GB, and I’m still discovering and trying to understand its possibilities and limitations.
I’m currently wondering how I would be able to access my devices remotely. I have a FritzBox Router, setup with WireGuard VPN to access my network remotely. I have been able to access HA this way before, but I’d like to be able to “see” my devices without having to turn on the VPN every time.
An idea occurred to me, although not sure if it would work: would I be able to see or get updates from my devices (even if limitedly) through the HomeKit integration in HA?
I am aware this potential solution would mean my devices connecting to apple’s cloud, but that’s a tradeoff I’m willing to take for the many benefits HA brings to the table (in my case, energy consumption logging).
If you have a device that acts as a home hub (Apple TV or HomePod) and expose your devices to HomeKit it will work remotely just like any other HomeKit device.
Hey, thanks! I’m glad to hear this. I do have both of the devices you mentioned that function as home hubs.
I would like to add other questions, if I may: Do you have a similar setup, or do you know if there is any noticeable delay to update the status of the devices in the Home app? This isn’t a dealbreaker, but would like to be aware of the repercussions of such topology.
Yes, I use HomeKit for everything and control it with Siri on my HomePod and Apple Watch as well. Everything works fine and there’s no noticeable lag.
I basically have nearly everything within home assistant showing up in HomeKit and never had issues so far. Home assistant is the player in the background running all the automations while exposing the most important devices to HomeKit (esp. for voice commands with Siri) Only downside using HomeKit as the „UI“: Notifications are very limited.
I have set this up in the past, and didn’t notice any significant delays. The only issue I ever ran into with this setup was my devices suddenly showing up as “no response” in the Home app. I never really had time to investigate the issue, so I’m not really sure what caused the problem. It wasn’t a huge deal for me since I could still use HA or the Hue app for my lights. I just moved and plan on trying it again once I get my server up and running.
I don't use HA but FHEM and what I do to retrieve data from my homecontrol is using a telegram bot.
In telegram you can setup buttons when formatting messages, so my bot shows me the control menu with predefined actions. One action is to show my power consumption at home.
There is no need to open ports as the telegram bot polls the same way you cell phone does.
Also the bot only communicates to known clients that I predefined before, so nobody can see or control my home network.
Maybe something similar is possible in HA.
Hey, thanks for the hint! I’ll need to read more about FHEM since it’s the first time I hear about it (how do people even find out about it?), there’s a lot going on for me here, but it’s nice to see there are more options out there.
I checked and there is basically no need to switch to fhem if you have a working environment as in HA the connection/use of a telegram bot is also possible.
It sounds like you just want to enable home assistant cloud https://www.nabucasa.com/
I am aware of the service, but I don’t want yet another subscription if I can avoid it. I am happy to donate to the HA team, but I’m slowly but surely moving away from subs. I will eventually get rid of HomeKit and in general the whole Apple ecosystem if I can sufficiently satisfy my needs with self-hosted services.
That is how you donate to the HA team
Don't think of it as a subscription then. Think of it as a recurring donation to the HA devs. Nabu Casa IS the HA devs.
I'm the same as you about subscriptions, but I make multiple small donations (recurring monthly) to Open Source projects that I believe in. I put Nabu Casa ($6-ish/month) in that group. And remote access is stupid simple when you do.
I don't know anything about homekit, but the best way (albeit with some learning curve) is to use a reverse proxy. Installing Nginx Proxy Manager in docker is maybe the easiest way.
Then you forward porta 80 and 443 (http and https) to the IP of NPM.
Buy a domain or use something like duckdns. This will make a URL like "homeassistant.duckdns.org" (for example) that points to your home IP address. You can manually update your home IP(most aren't static) or have software update it automatically. You can also skip this step and just type your IP into the address bar of your browser (or the Home Assistant app). You'll have to keep it updated manually this way.
So you visit that URL, it goes through your router to Nginx Proxy Manager, and you tell NPM to forward that stuff to the internal IP of Home Assistant. NPM can create certificates to make it all secure, and the login is handled by Home Assistant as normal.
There is additional config in config.yaml to allow your reverse proxy. This adds an additional layer of security.
I have a setup like this, and it has worked great so far. I have a home VPN but wanted to have Apple Home access as well for a simpler remote option, and some of my family prefer the Apple Home app. I use the HomeKit Bridge integration to expose various Home Assistant connected devices to Apple Home running on an Apple TV 4K. It has worked well with nearly every device I've set up, including lights and light switches, environmental sensors, SwitchBot bots and more. The syncing/updating is near instant for me.
The only trouble I've had so far have been with my thermostat, which initially always appeared as "on" in Apple Home, and a couple of breakages with updates. However the thermostat recently started to behave properly, and any update incompatibilities have always been quickly resolved.
Using the HomeKit Bridge also allows you to use Siri to interact with Home Assistant devices which can be useful, especially if you gave any HomePods etc.
Ah, good to know someone with a similar setup! I have some Homepod minis, so siri does get some usage. Did you by chance also migrated from Homebridge to HA? I would have some questions about how to migrate zigbee devices from homebridge to HA… 😅
I started with HA, I haven’t had much experience with Homebridge.
From what I have heard migrating paired Zigbee devices between platforms can be unreliable. If you have a limited number of devices it might be worth repairing them manually.
Install the nginx proxy manager add-on, set up let's encrypt for certificates and DuckDNS for name resolution, forward a port from your router. No need for homekit or a full vpn.
I also have a VPN set up to my home network that I can connect to with my mobile devices. once connected I use the HA mobile app pathed to my local HA server IP. I don’t use HA cloud or any other cloud service. It works well for me, I obviously can’t get notification on the mobile when not connected but I have not had a need yet. If/When I'm do want notifications I would most likely explore, e-mail, e-mail to SMS, SMS API or something that won’t involve external servers. I would not want to send sensitive info via SMS but a shot alert that said there is something to look at like “HA Alert: Motion detected cam 1” or such would be fine.
Update: It works! I get all notifications from my sensors and it's working great. Thanks everyone!
For future reference, my setup:
HASS OS running on an SSD (Kingston A2000 250GB) connected to a RaspberryPi 4B 4GB
And an addendum: If anyone is having trouble migrating their Zigbee devices from Homebridge to Home Assistant, what helped me was unplugging all previous zigbee router devices before setting up the new Zigbee network, otherwise the coordinator wouldn't start or some weird issue would pop up during setup. After disconnecting the router devices I was able to start the coordinator, and add the routers again to the new network.