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).

  • possum@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    2·
    9 months ago

    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.

    • phrogpilot73@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      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.

      • possum@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        I guess I’ll give it a try at least, that would solve my problem somehow.