homeassistant

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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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Remote access possible via HomeKit integration? (self.homeassistant)

submitted 1 year ago by possum to c/homeassistant

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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).

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[–] possum 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] Tinnitus 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I haven’t had that happen in forever but it used to happen constantly. A while back Apple changed how HomeKit worked (and had to roll it back for a while because it broke home sharing). I think that update is what fixed the no response problem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

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.