3 ms·

Homebridge 2.0 is here, and it speaks Matter

50 points by Brajeshwar 6mo ago

emsy 6mo ago
I love homebridge. Out of the 100 devices or so that I have in the HomeApp, only 2 or so are „native“ HomeKit devices. Will upgrade to HomeBridge 2 soon (but keep my old installation just to be safe =))
MarleTangible 6mo ago
Please be cognizant of fake plugins. They replicate entire plugins including the readme files and link to the original repos, but the code itself is different.
rozal 6mo ago
[dead]
dostick 6mo ago
With HomeAssistant, what is really use for Homebridge? Seems like it’s a stepping towards HA, and everyone upgrades eventually.
- joshka 6mo ago
  I haven't used homebridge, but have used HA in the past when I had lights and things hooked up. The UX and configuration surface always felt janky to me. So many little paper cut annoyances across every control / window / menu that you touch. The screenshots of homebridge seem much better at a cursory glance - if so, that's a net gain.
- tass 6mo ago
  I use it to enable voice control (turn on the coffee machine), quick actions on iOS devices and for the simpler and faster Home ui for basic controls. It’s also handy in that you get remote access with no extra port forwarding.
- rcarmo 6mo ago
  You get a no-nerdy interface to automate your smart home prebaked in every iPhone and tablet, and people don’t need to install anything.
- nerdjon 6mo ago
  It depends on what your use case is, I have both homebridge and homeassistant setup for different devices. But I also use HomeKit as the main hub of my home automation not home assistant. For me both services are primarily for things that don't natively support HomeKit (my vacuum, logitech harmony, the receiver for my sound system, and a couple other things). I also use home assistant to expose a couple of fake accessories for state tracking for some automation, and I do a little bit of more advanced automation in home assistant. I use both though since some plugins in the home assistant side are way to complex (and causes issues due to that complexity) for what I need to just expose controls to homekit, or don't work as well as the homebridge version.
apparent 6mo ago
I've heard of Homebridge before and looked into it briefly. But I never quite understood the appeal. Is the main benefit that you have all your cameras in one place, or you can trigger scenes based on non-HomeKit devices? I find it to be moderately annoying that my different brands of cameras aren't all in one place, but I'm not annoyed enough to spend hours setting up an intermediary system (that might need rebooting/special care when the power/internet goes out). What are the biggest benefits of Homebridge?
- dwb 6mo ago
  You can't see the appeal of integrating all your devices into one interface? Not sure many will be able to help you, then. Mine is on a little Raspberry Pi 2 and, like the devices that it manages, is down on the rare occasions when the power is out, and then comes back up again afterwards. It's not on the internet, or any guest networks, so I don't worry about patching it.
  - apparent 6mo ago
    Yeah, not really. I get notifications when a camera spots anyone, but I don't have any triggers based on that. I have a couple different brands of cameras, but when an alert comes through I just tap on that to open the relevant app, if I care to see more. I don't have any scenes except lights, which are all HomeKit compatible. Is the benefit that you can buy non-HomeKit accessories (for less money) and talk to them through Siri like they were HomeKit compatible? I do have some older Wemo switches/plugs that are no longer supported by Wemo, so if I could get control of those, that would be helpful. For now, they're just fixed to the timer schedule I set before Belkin sunsetted Wemo.
    - cweagans 6mo ago
      > I just tap on that to open the relevant app, if I care to see more. The key difference between what you're doing and what Homebridge enables is to make the relevant app the "Home" app. If all of my IoT devices are controllable (and can be automated to some degree) through a single pane of glass that I can share with my wife, that's a big improvement over "Ok, to get access to our cameras, you need to go install these three apps and log in to all of them and accept my sharing invite, etc, etc". Yeah, you can talk to Siri to control the devices sometimes, but that is at the very very bottom of my list of benefits. I want the app UI specifically, and Homebridge enables that. (one concrete example: Ring doorbells don't play nicely with Homekit on their own, but you can install a Homebridge extension and then your doorbell camera shows up as a Homekit-compatible camera in the Home app).

50 points by Brajeshwar 6mo ago

emsy 6mo ago

I love homebridge. Out of the 100 devices or so that I have in the HomeApp, only 2 or so are „native“ HomeKit devices. Will upgrade to HomeBridge 2 soon (but keep my old installation just to be safe =))

MarleTangible 6mo ago

Please be cognizant of fake plugins. They replicate entire plugins including the readme files and link to the original repos, but the code itself is different.

rozal 6mo ago

[dead]

dostick 6mo ago

With HomeAssistant, what is really use for Homebridge? Seems like it’s a stepping towards HA, and everyone upgrades eventually.

joshka 6mo ago
I haven't used homebridge, but have used HA in the past when I had lights and things hooked up. The UX and configuration surface always felt janky to me. So many little paper cut annoyances across every control / window / menu that you touch. The screenshots of homebridge seem much better at a cursory glance - if so, that's a net gain.
tass 6mo ago
I use it to enable voice control (turn on the coffee machine), quick actions on iOS devices and for the simpler and faster Home ui for basic controls. It’s also handy in that you get remote access with no extra port forwarding.
rcarmo 6mo ago
You get a no-nerdy interface to automate your smart home prebaked in every iPhone and tablet, and people don’t need to install anything.
nerdjon 6mo ago
It depends on what your use case is, I have both homebridge and homeassistant setup for different devices. But I also use HomeKit as the main hub of my home automation not home assistant. For me both services are primarily for things that don't natively support HomeKit (my vacuum, logitech harmony, the receiver for my sound system, and a couple other things). I also use home assistant to expose a couple of fake accessories for state tracking for some automation, and I do a little bit of more advanced automation in home assistant. I use both though since some plugins in the home assistant side are way to complex (and causes issues due to that complexity) for what I need to just expose controls to homekit, or don't work as well as the homebridge version.

apparent 6mo ago

I've heard of Homebridge before and looked into it briefly. But I never quite understood the appeal. Is the main benefit that you have all your cameras in one place, or you can trigger scenes based on non-HomeKit devices? I find it to be moderately annoying that my different brands of cameras aren't all in one place, but I'm not annoyed enough to spend hours setting up an intermediary system (that might need rebooting/special care when the power/internet goes out). What are the biggest benefits of Homebridge?

dwb 6mo ago
You can't see the appeal of integrating all your devices into one interface? Not sure many will be able to help you, then. Mine is on a little Raspberry Pi 2 and, like the devices that it manages, is down on the rare occasions when the power is out, and then comes back up again afterwards. It's not on the internet, or any guest networks, so I don't worry about patching it.
- apparent 6mo ago
  Yeah, not really. I get notifications when a camera spots anyone, but I don't have any triggers based on that. I have a couple different brands of cameras, but when an alert comes through I just tap on that to open the relevant app, if I care to see more. I don't have any scenes except lights, which are all HomeKit compatible. Is the benefit that you can buy non-HomeKit accessories (for less money) and talk to them through Siri like they were HomeKit compatible? I do have some older Wemo switches/plugs that are no longer supported by Wemo, so if I could get control of those, that would be helpful. For now, they're just fixed to the timer schedule I set before Belkin sunsetted Wemo.
  - cweagans 6mo ago
    > I just tap on that to open the relevant app, if I care to see more. The key difference between what you're doing and what Homebridge enables is to make the relevant app the "Home" app. If all of my IoT devices are controllable (and can be automated to some degree) through a single pane of glass that I can share with my wife, that's a big improvement over "Ok, to get access to our cameras, you need to go install these three apps and log in to all of them and accept my sharing invite, etc, etc". Yeah, you can talk to Siri to control the devices sometimes, but that is at the very very bottom of my list of benefits. I want the app UI specifically, and Homebridge enables that. (one concrete example: Ring doorbells don't play nicely with Homekit on their own, but you can install a Homebridge extension and then your doorbell camera shows up as a Homekit-compatible camera in the Home app).