Community Hass.io Add-ons: Homebridge

This add-on provides the installation, configuration, and integration for Homebridge.

Deprecation warning

This add-on is in a deprecated state!

At this point it is unsure how long this add-on keeps available or updated.

This add-on was originally developed to add HomeKit support to Home Assistant. Meanwhile, Home Assistant gained native support for HomeKit.

https://www.home-assistant.io/components/homekit/

Because of this, is very likely that the plugins this add-on rely, on will no longer be developed or maintained.

We STRONGLY suggest to migrate to the Home Assistant HomeKit component.

About

Homebridge is a server that emulates the iOS HomeKit API, allowing you to control your Home Assistant via Apple devices (including Siri).

Since Siri supports devices added through HomeKit, this means that with Homebridge you can ask Siri to control devices that don't have any support for HomeKit at all. For instance, you could say:

• Siri, unlock the back door.
• Siri, open the garage door.
• Siri, turn on the coffee maker.
• Siri, turn on the living room lights.
• Siri, good morning!

Installation

The installation of this add-on is pretty straightforward and not different in comparison to installing any other Hass.io add-on.

1. Add our Hass.io add-ons repository to your Hass.io instance.
2. Install the "Homebridge" add-on.
3. Start the "Homebridge" add-on.
4. Check the logs of the "Homebridge" add-on to see if everything went well moreover, to find the pin code needed to add your Home Assistant instance to your iOS device

Please read the rest of this document further instructions.

NOTE: Do not add this repository to Hass.io, please use: https://github.com/hassio-addons/repository.

Docker status

Configuration

On the first run, this add-on creates the necessary configuration files for you. Stored in /config/homebridge/. You can modify the configuration to your liking. For documentation on configuring Homebridge, please refer to the Homebridge GitHub repository. For documentation on configuring the Home Assistant for Homebridge plugin, please refer to the Home Assistant for Homebridge GitHub repository.

The add-on has a configuration possibilities as well.

Note: Remember to restart the add-on when the configuration is changed.

Example add-on configuration:

{
  "log_level": "info",
  "avahi_interfaces": "",
  "avahi_hostname": "",
  "avahi_domainname": "local",
  "enable_ipv6": true,
  "packages": [],
  "init_commands": [],
  "plugins": []
}

Option: log_level

The log_level option controls the level of log output by the addon and can be changed to be more or less verbose, which might be useful when you are dealing with an unknown issue. Possible values are:

• trace: Show every detail, like all called internal functions.
• debug: Shows detailed debug information.
• info: Normal (usually) interesting events.
• warning: Exceptional occurrences that are not errors.
• error: Runtime errors that do not require immediate action.
• fatal: Something went terribly wrong. Add-on becomes unusable.

Please note that each level automatically includes log messages from a more severe level, e.g., debug also shows info messages. By default, the log_level is set to info, which is the recommended setting unless you are troubleshooting.

Using trace or debug log levels puts the Homebridge server into debug mode.

Option: avahi_interfaces

Set a comma separated list of allowed network interfaces that should be used by the Avahi service. Other interfaces will be ignored. If left empty, the add-on will try to auto-detect the interfaces, which should be fine in most cases.

Note: There is a special internal interface for Hass.io called hassio. This interface is always added to the list automatically

Option: avahi_hostname

Set the hostname to Avahi server. The add-on tries to register on your network using this hostname. If left empty the hostname will be automatically detected via the Hass.io API, which sould be fine in most cases.

Option: avahi_domainname

Set the default domain name for Avahi. The add-on tries to register its hostname and services on your network. In most cases, the default, local, should be fine.

Option: enable_ipv6

In some situations, IPv6 might cause more problems then it solves. Setting this option to false, partially disables IPv6 support causing Ahahi and Homebridge to only listen for connections on IPv4

Option: insecure

Allow unauthenticated requests to Homebridge (for easier hacking). Some plugins require this as well. Be aware of the possible security implication this has.

Option: packages

Allows you to specify additional Alpine packages to be installed to your Homebridge setup (e.g., python, g++. make, ffmpeg).

Note: Adding many packages will result in a longer start-up time for the add-on.

Option: init_commands

Customize your Homebridge setup even more with the init_commands option. Add one or more shell commands to the list, and they will be executed every single time this add-on starts.

Option: plugins

This Homebridge add-on has support for installing additional Homebridge plugins. Plugins are NodeJS modules published through NPM and tagged with the keyword homebridge-plugin. They must have a name with the prefix homebridge-, like homebridge-mysmartlock.

The homebridge-homeassistant plugin is already installed for you.

You can install a plugin by adding it to the add-on configuration. The add-on ensures the plugin is installed on start.

Example add-on configuration (partial):

{
  "plugins": [
    "homebridge-dummy",
    "homebridge-mysmartlock"
  ]
}

You can explore all available plugins at the NPM website by searching for the keyword homebridge-plugin.

Note: Some plugins require build tools or other packages. You might need to install these packages using the packages option first.

Adding Homebridge to iOS

Using the Home app (or most other HomeKit apps), you should be able to add the single accessory "Home Assistant", assuming that you are still running the Homebridge add-on and you are on the same (Wifi) network. Adding this accessory automatically adds all accessories and platforms defined in your Home Assistant instance.

When you attempt to add the "Home Assistant" accessory, it will ask for a "PIN code". This pin code is randomly generated when this add-on is run for the first time. You can find the generated PIN code in the add-on logs and in your /config/homebridge/config.json file (where you, of course, can change it as well).

Known issues and limitations

• Once your device has been added to HomeKit, you should be able to tell Siri to control your devices. However, realize that Siri is a cloud service and iOS may need some time to synchronize your device information with iCloud.
• Siri will almost always prefer its default phrase handling over HomeKit devices. For instance, if you name your Sonos device "Radio" and try saying "Siri, turn on the Radio" then Siri will probably start playing an iTunes Radio station on your phone. Even if you name it "Sonos" and say "Siri, turn on the Sonos", Siri will probably just launch the Sonos app instead. This is why, for instance, the suggested name for the Sonos accessory is "Speakers".
• One installation of Homebridge can only expose 100 accessories due to a HomeKit limit.
• Once an accessory has been added to the Home app, changing its name via Homebridge will not be automatically reflected in iOS. You must change it via the Home app as well.
• If you have set up SSL using a self-signed certificate, you will need to set verify_ssl to false in your /config/homebridge/config.json file to allow bypassing the NodeJS certificate checks.
• Errors on startup. The following errors are experienced when starting Homebridge and can be safely ignored.

*** WARNING *** The program 'nodejs' uses the Apple Bonjour compatibility layer
of Avahi
*** WARNING *** Please fix your application to use the native API of Avahi!
*** WARNING *** For more information see
http://0pointerde/avahi-compat?s=libdns_sd&e=nodejs
*** WARNING *** The program 'nodejs' called 'DNSServiceRegister()' which is not
supported (or only supported partially) in the Apple Bonjour compatibility layer
of Avahi
*** WARNING *** Please fix your application to use the native API of Avahi!
*** WARNING *** For more information see
http://0pointerde/avahi-compat?s=libdns_sd&e=nodejs&f=DNSServiceRegister

FAQ

Homebridge cannot connect or login to Home Assistant

Please be sure to set the host and password parameters in the /config/homebridge/config.json file.

We recommend using http://hassio/homeassistant as the host with an empty password, which allows Homebridge to talk to Home Assistant directly.

My iOS App Cannot Find Homebridge/Home Assistant

Two reasons why Homebridge may not be discoverable:

1. Homebridge server thinks it has been paired with, but iOS thinks otherwise. Fix: deleted persist/ directory which is in your config/homebridge directory and restart the add-on.

2. iOS device has gotten your Homebridge username (looks like a MAC address) "stuck" somehow, where it is in the database but inactive. Fix: change your username in the "bridge" section of /config/homebridge/config.json to be some new value and restart the add-on.

Changelog & Releases

This repository keeps a change log using GitHub's releases functionality. The format of the log is based on Keep a Changelog.

Releases are based on Semantic Versioning, and use the format of MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH. In a nutshell, the version will be incremented based on the following:

• MAJOR: Incompatible or major changes.
• MINOR: Backwards-compatible new features and enhancements.
• PATCH: Backwards-compatible bugfixes and package updates.

Support

Got questions?

You have several options to get them answered:

• The Community Hass.io Add-ons Discord chat server for add-on support and feature requests.
• The Home Assistant Discord chat server for general Home Assistant discussions and questions.
• The Home Assistant Community Forum.
• Join the Reddit subreddit in /r/homeassistant

You could also open an issue here GitHub.

Contributing

This is an active open-source project. We are always open to people who want to use the code or contribute to it.

We have set up a separate document containing our contribution guidelines.

Thank you for being involved! 😍

Authors & contributors

The original setup of this repository is by Franck Nijhof.

For a full list of all authors and contributors, check the contributor's page.

Credits

A big shout out to the following people, without them this add-on was not possible:

• The team & community of Home Assistant for developing such an excellent home automation toolkit
• Nick Farina for developing Homebrige

This add-on has been inspired by the following repositories:

• docker-homebridge by Oznu
• homebridge-dockerby ckuburlis
• hassio-addons by Olivier Guerriat

Thank you all!

We have got some Hass.io add-ons for you

Want some more functionality to your Hass.io Home Assistant instance?

We have created multiple add-ons for Hass.io. For a full list, check out our GitHub Repository.

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2017 Franck Nijhof

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.