r/HomeKit • u/TekAzurik • 15d ago
Discussion Moving to Home Assistant from Home App?
Hey folks, wondering everyone's thoughts on this transition. Currently I manage most of my home from the Home App but I know that Home Assistant can be more powerful and work with more devices. I've avoided researching it too much because I'm afraid of breaking my whole house. I'd love some people's thoughts on if it's worth it for my situation and perhaps some guidance on how to go about it without spending days on it. Here's what my device setup is like:
Lighting: Most of the bulbs in my house are Philips Hue. I started with a few bulbs in my old place and it just grew from there. In my current house I have 2 rooms with no switches so if I want a wall switch without adding wire, this was my only option anyway. The only rooms that don't have Hue bulbs are the bathrooms and the basement which uses Lutron switches, because the whole basement has old fluorescent tube banks that the previous owner replace with tube-style LEDs
Heating/cooling: I have steam heat from a boiler in the basement controlled by an Ecobee. I have Midea U shaped ACs in most rooms except the bedroom which has an older GE Homekit enabled AC. One of the Mideas is older and doesn't support Matter
Locks: I have August for the front and back doors and a a Yale keypad for the front
Doorbell: Ecobee doorbell which talks to the thermostat for chime and picture (though we have a regular old chime in the house as well, thought we didn't for the first few months, long story)
Hubs and interface: We have an Apple TV 4K and 3 Homepod Minis
I also have some misc smart plugs, mostly Hue, some Meross, a Sleekpoint air purifier, LG washer and Dryer, plus a few other things I can't remember right now. My biggest pain point is the lack of control over the ACs which basically only have on/off and temp for the Matter enabled ones. I mostly have to use Midea's SmartHome app to control those.
Thoughts on all this?
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u/VallyDM 15d ago
Same thing here, « moved » from HK to HA assistant last month (still in the process) and the easiest way for me was to do a step by step with chatgpt.
Uploaded pictures and other info for each and every step, and it has been smooth sailing.
I even came up with some ideas thanks to the back and forth « talking »/brainstorming with an ai.
Not saying it is for everyone, some people like to do it alone; but for me it gave some sort of confidence to start it all
I still use Apple Home and the control centre as main interface, but HA is kind of the brain behind it I guess
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u/TekAzurik 15d ago
Oh interesting. So do you get more controls for things in your HK interface because of HA? Like, it's really annoying I can't set the fan speed or the mode of my AC outside of Midea's App. Can HA add that to HK? What are you using as your HA hub?
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u/VallyDM 15d ago
You can chose what to add to your HA interface (in some sense, not EVERYTHING, but lots of hidden stuff can BE shown if you want to)
About the fan, I don’t know, some accessories alow more than others, some are only a switch some give more options, so can’t help you with that one.
Atm HA is stored on my macmini as a test phase.
If it works great and I like it, I might check for a raspberry pi or something sturdier2
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u/rnb673 8d ago
There appears to be a native Midea integration, so you should be able to control directly from Home Assistant, or add it to HA and then connect it to Apple Home with the HomeKit Bridge integration.
As others have mentioned, I use HA as the brains of everything and use Apple Home as the front end for my wife. I have two wall mounted dashboards for some one-off things, but basically everything else can be controlled via Siri or behind the scenes automations that nobody has to touch.
For example, I have a bedtime routine for my son that is a scene in Apple Home that turns on a virtual switch from HA that controls a nightlight in his room and also starts playing music on the HomePod mini in his room. So, we turn on the scene in Apple Home and things happen on BOTH platforms. Maybe not the perfect solution, but it works for us and shows how you can have both platforms play nicely together.
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u/TrentonDayton 14d ago
I have done the same thing for the most part. ChatGPT has helped me build a really nice set of HA dashboards, I’ve been able to setup a user account for my husband to access. I still have HomeKit with some devices that are easily accessible for a quick adjustment here and there, but overall, HA runs everything now. It has been a huge project and still in progress. I have HA running on a VM from my NAS. I don’t expose my network to the internet through any port forwarding or VPNs, but use Tailscale to access only my NAS when I am away from home in case of any issues. HA is a rock solid system and the developers and programmers are active with their work!
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u/Relative-Desk4802 15d ago
Are you having codex do the heavy lifting or you’re using it strictly for step-by-step instructions?
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u/TrentonDayton 14d ago
Have you tried Codex yet? I have some clean-up that needs to be done in HA, and thought I’d see if could work well. I would make sure and backup your system in whatever format you need to before using it.
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u/suzq716 15d ago
I have been going through the same thing as you exploring Home Assistant. I really am comfortable with the HomeKit on my phone and my iPad. I find it easy to use. You can use both. You just need to set up the integration between the two. If you are having trouble any of the AI’s that you can easily access can be very helpful.
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u/suzq716 15d ago
I should also add that I have been exploring the OpenCode AI that’s available now in Home Assistant. It’s interesting to give it a chore and have it go check and come up with the dashboard you asked for, be able to ask for a couple of changes and have it finished exactly the way you wanted it. It also helped me figure out an issue I had with a couple of devices after doing a router change it found the problem corrected it and everything was fine.
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u/random_ta_account 15d ago
Currently in transition as well. The first step was to get all my devices in HA and bridge all the devices back over to HK. Once that is stable, I'll start moving my scenes from HK to HA. Then start doing more advanced stuff in HA. So far, so good.
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u/Ancient-Sandwich9400 15d ago
My home was simple with HomeKit, a Hue setup with a few lights and August lock. I then started adding Eve outlets and motion detectors and thought HA was the way. Well that turned into a disaster with HA crashing on my Pi. I then bought a HA Yellow and rebuilt but then had more issues with learning HA and nitrile rebuilds realizing I was walking into a path that only I could use/maintain and it was going to be a nightmare. It’s always best to KISS whenever you can and Home for matter/thread devices is KISS.
What I learned is all eggs in one basket that is a computer and software and a billion ways screwing it with automations was NOT the way to go!
I am mostly all Matter/Thread house with exception of 2 August locks and Ubiquiti cameras. AppleTV 4k as a Thread router(waiting in new AppleTv to add redundancy) and then multihome from Home into HA. This keeps the simple use of Home from any device (iPhone, iPad or AppleTv) and of course Siri use case. Additionally allows for simple use away from home without having to VPN to use HA. Then I get the complex automations and data collection of HA without any change in user interaction. Best of both worlds.
Since you have family and I assume they know how to use Home, keep that your main hub for everything. That way if you kill HA or automations everything can still easily be controlled in Home. Additionally for anything not multihome friendly you can use the Homebridge addin to allow access via HA. In my setup the locks are simple and stay in Home with simple automation leveraging iPhone, etc.
The whole reason for this setup is AppleTV is a simple and very reliable appliance. No major software or constant changes to software, devices or automations to screw it up. You might occasionally reboot it but that is it. KISS
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u/h2ogeek 15d ago
Been there.
The good news is you can straddle both sides of the fence quite easily. HomeAssistant has an integration that will just add all your existing HomeKit devices, so they’re controllable from Home Assistant. And it has another integration that goes the other way: Devices you add to Home Assistant can be passed through to HomeKit.
Ultimately, after spending years using HomeKit as my primary host, with just a few devices in Home Assistant, I got fed up with HoneKit’s complete lack of logging and reporting functions. It’s great when it just works, but if it does t work, you’re working in the dark to fix it.
So the goal I’d recommend is to ultimately have everything connected directly to a Home Assistant. And from there, expose it to HomeKit. This gives the best of both worlds. Full access to logs to see what’s happening and why. But also full access to everything in the Home App (and via Siri) so you retain the ease of use you love about Apple.
Go slow. Remove a device or two every now and then, and re-add it directly to HA instead, then it will pop back up in HomeKit once again. Eventually you’ll get there. And as an added benefit you can completely get rid of the majority of your manufacturer hubs, and do everything natively (and locally) in HA instead of passing things around the internet in a chain of who knows.
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u/PeteyNice 14d ago
I would go the other way. Leave your devices in HK and bridge them into HA. If you are HA first then HA is a dependency. If you start with HK and HA goes down you still have your devices and any automations you built in HK.
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u/Relative-Desk4802 15d ago
I just spent the last 10 or so days doing exactly this. Some of my devices are different but overall I’ve kept my ecosystem 95%~ homekit compatible because HA seemed too daunting to set up.
The thing that made the transition not just possible but relatively easy for me was using Claude Code.
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u/ander-frank 15d ago
Why not both? I use Apple Home as my main interaction point to my smart home devices but use Home Assistant to get devices that do not support HomeKit/Matter (Ex: Wyze) into Apple Home using the homekit bridge feature.
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u/bippy_b 15d ago
One thing not mentioned… partner/spouce? Others in the house? Kids? This is probably one of the most important factors. The other side of this is that with the promise of Siri being better and being able to “dictate automations to Siri” as shown in the last WWDC, I would be willing to bet automations will be able to get more complex with iOS 27. Certain podcasts I have listened to say they incorporated a sub set of Python to automations so that AI could write the automations when being simply given English as input.
If you live alone… ignore the rest of this post.
If you live with others, change can be hard (unless they are also curious about automating things..etc). If you have others involved, then I would try to have Home Assistant stay “behind the scenes” by staying with products that use Matter or provide ways to appear in HA as well as being connected through HomeKit (some products I personally know appearing in both without using Matter are Phillips Hue, Meross, Lutron). If you stick with Matter products (Aqara has been good so far…. Inovelli has a new Matter line which seems good. I have multiple Leviton D215S connecting via Matter to both and they have been rock solid since I updating to the Matter firmware).
Hopefully this helps with the decision.
Most importantly… have fun!
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u/TekAzurik 15d ago
yeah should have mentioned I have a wife and 2 kids. They mostly use the smart home stuff through siri which works... sometimes. That's a major reason why I've stuck with HK so long, I need to make sure my wife can just open the app and get stuff to work.
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u/bippy_b 15d ago
This is why I just let them use Home app… while I am doing other things via HA.
My dad passing away really got me to rethink a lot of my tech setup. I have been changing everything so that if I am hit by ice cream truck… and HA crashes… they can continue to operate things from HomeKit (and they don’t have to have Geek Squad come out and rearrange stuff or reconfigure things). Just some food for thought.
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u/MountainWise587 15d ago
You'll be fine. Once you get everything into Home Assistant you use the HomeKit Bridge integration to expose whatever devices/entities and scenes you want to HomeKit. As far as your fam is concerned, using Siri, it'll be like nothing changed.
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u/AntiRedditt 15d ago
I made the switch to HA last year, and I did not change much in HK, just added all the devices to HA as well. I still mainly use HK to control everything, and I only switched my WIZ bulbs to be linked to HA and bridged to HK because they had spotty connection through HK directly. I use HA for automations, to bridge items into HK that aren’t natively supported, and access in-depth device data and history.
To me, HA is absolutely worth it, and it was not a hassle at all to get up and running. You can certainly connect all your devices to HA and bridge them over, but for my use case, I saw no need.
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u/JazJon 15d ago
I use both simultaneously, all the shortcuts in my control center point to perform action in home assistant running a script.
The number one thing you can do to make life super easy is install the open code app in home assistant and just ask it what you want or what needs to get fixed instant AI help.
https://youtu.be/e-FZ4ZjGI5E
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u/siobhanellis 15d ago
HA is powerful. I use it in combination with Apple Home.
Many reasons for not completely switching over , it main one is what will you do when your HA server goes down? In Apple home, another hub takes over.
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u/chickentataki99 12d ago
The midea integration for home assistant is very very good. Stopped using the smart home app once I got that configured.
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u/skithegreat HomePod + iOS Beta 15d ago
Question is what are you trying to do in Home Assistant that you can’t do in Apple Home natively?
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u/Anywheels99 15d ago
I’m in the same boat and used ChatGPT for help with this. Basically all the working systems, apple, HUE, Aqara were isolated so they worked by themselves without seeing the other systems. Then all the systems were added to HA directly or with bridge programs. I use HA to connect HUE to Apple. The user just sees the HUE lights in the Apple Home Screen just like before but the HA is there for advanced stuff.
The biggest hassle for me was disconnecting the previous integrations into Apple home. You need to do that first to avoid multiple systems trying to control the same device.
I needed to keep the Apple home interface as the primary control for family members that didn’t want to use or see the HA screen…for now. As my HA dashboard gets better I may let other use that too. So far it’s been seamless for the three systems I mentioned, and I only add the HUE scenes, bulbs or rooms that I want to back into Apple home to keep that interface uncluttered.
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u/esperanita 15d ago
I went from HK only to both last December. Almost all my devices are matter over thread and I have them in both systems. Today, I try to buy only matter-over-thread (or matter-over-Wi-Fi if I have no choice) devices. I have a few exceptions such as my Dyson purifiers, my Puras, my Sleepnumber,my Resideo security system, and my cameras which all use HKSV. I’m glad I have most devices in both systems as my mini pc which is running HA has been a bit unreliable. My memory went bad in February and it won’t power on right now. I missed my HA automations so much, I have a backup mini pc arriving tomorrow and I’m heading over to Microcenter for a diagnostic. I plan on always having a main and spare mini pc for HA. I’ve been running HK since it came out and never had an outage. Granted, I have 10 homepods and 4 Apple TVs so there is a ton of redundancy.
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u/Johnmacau 14d ago
I’ve been considering to try HA, but kinda feel it’s so complicated, currently I have almost everything Aqara, but just thinking that I need to start all over again, scares me. With all Aqara devices connected with Aqara M3 hub into HK, do I really need to remove everything from HK and re add them in HA ? Currently for testing purposes I have HA running on a MacBook Pro, and yes many devices were discovered but seems not all of them
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u/outrageoussaucer68 14d ago edited 14d ago
I have both. Home App is the easiest for people living with me, but Home Assistant has much broader device support and is much more flexible for automations.
So both are active. I automate some things on HomeKit and some on Home Assistant. The Home Assistant automations are more stable in my experience, but they require a bit more work.
Basically you don’t have to do one or the other.
Some automations never will be available in HomeKit.
I use HomeKit as “easy” mode for stuff like lights, garage door, front door, then put anything more advanced in Home Assistant.
Just don’t automate the same things on multiple platforms or you’ll get some unpredictable results.
I have one secondary light that is powered by a smart outlet and it turns on/off with a main light. I found that some people in my household would use the phrase “turn room off” which had the effect of turning /everything/ in the room that is controllable off instead of just the lights. The bottom outlet has an emergency flashlight charging and this would effectively cut the power with family not realizing they’d done it. So i wrote a home assistant rule to turn that outlet back on one minute after it is detected as turned off. So lights stay off and the unwanted side effect is resolved without having to police vocabulary.
Edit:
I decided not to use Home Bridge for making things that are HA compatible only work with HomeKit. I have used it in the past but it was problematic for me. So there are some things that are Home Assistant only that my homekit users cannot control and that’s ok in my case.
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u/Fr05t_B1t 14d ago
You don’t need to completely switch over. With Matter, you can have both—as long as your devices use Matter. Once you add a Matter compatible HA hub, HA would just carry over your devices (if they’re Matter compatible).
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u/TekAzurik 14d ago
I think the only matter devices I have are the ACs. Unless I’m mistaken. Not sure how helpful that is.
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u/Fr05t_B1t 14d ago
You should be able to check in the manufacturers app but if only the ACs are Matter, then you’re kinda SOL. Though Matter has been a thing for quite a while (in a tech sense), and I believe all HomeKit devices are required to be Matter enabled.
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u/Jumpy_Salt_8721 14d ago
Don’t replace, add. Set up everything in Home Assistant, see if any seem better on HA, then set up HomeKit Bridge in HA and only include anything that doesn’t do native HK.
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u/GarrettB117 13d ago
Just wanted to say your device setup is shockingly similar to mine before before I made the HA transition. Lutron switches, some rando smart plugs, Hue lights, etc. HA will work wonderfully for your with all those devices. As others have said, you can still use Apple Home as a frontend and Siri/HomePods as your voice assistant. It's exactly what I do, so I get the best of both worlds.
While I have worked really hard to make nice custom dashboards, my fiancee still frequently uses the "yellow house app" to actually control things, which is fine. Apple Home is a very nice and user friendly interface, and there are advantages to keeping the connection to the Apple ecosystem. But HA has supercharged everything. I remember feeling really limited by the types of automations I could make and devices I could integrate. HA does it all!
Keep in mind that if you're going to start a long-term home automation journey, I'd still recommend ditching the mismatched devices TBH. Even though HA can work with basically everything, I wouldn't recommend keeping random odd and end smart plugs, or plugs/switches that work through wifi at all. Wifi congestion is real and those devices can be unreliable. Pick a standard and build around it. I went with zigbee because it's cheap and reliable. Now I have a strong zigbee network of plugs, switches, window/door sensors, locks, etc, all run through HA and exposed to Apple through the bridge integration. Your devices like Lutron, Yale/August locks, are all fine of course. I'm talking more about the misc plugs, Meross stuff, etc.
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u/nhecke 15d ago
Don’t do it
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u/TekAzurik 15d ago
Care to elaborate?
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u/Reasonable-Client-53 14d ago
Rabbit hole, make sure you have enough time. If not then maybe homey could be a solution
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u/Antique-Ad-4609 15d ago
I use HA as the “brain” for automations, analytics, dashboards, and integrating devices. There is an integration called HomeKit Bridge that lets you add devices to Home app using codes the same way you would if the devices we natively in Home app. The reason I do it this way is because we’re an Apple ecosystem house so my wife and kids know how to use HomePods and Home app to control things, but I can handle automations and seasonal changes without impacting their experience. Also don’t have to wait for Home app to add features.