How Home Assistant Changed My Apple Smart Home for the Better

I love Home Assistant, but likely not for the reason you’re expecting. While Home Assistant is fantastic for home automation, there’s one trick up its sleeve that completely changed my Apple smart home setup for the better.

Home Assistant Does More Than Control Your Smart Home

It’s relatively well-known (in the smart home world) that Home Assistant is fantastic for controlling your smart home and setting up automations. But, what if I told you I don’t use Home Assistant for that at all? My use for the famed smart home platform is quite different.

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While Home Assistant is ultra-powerful when it comes to automation, I use it for one reason and one reason only: HomeKit integration. Yes, I use Home Assistant purely to import non-HomeKit devices into HomeKit. While I do want to dive into using Home Assistant for automations in the future, right now it purely brings non-HomeKit devices into my Apple smart home setup.

This is something that I’ve been looking for since I got into smart home devices. HomeKit certification used to be expensive, but in recent years, Apple has made it easier for companies to get approved for its smart home platform. In fact, with Matter, it’s even easier to bring devices into Apple’s HomeKit ecosystem now than ever before.

However, all the devices I already own that aren’t HomeKit-compatible don’t benefit from any of the latest software or hardware advancements. That’s where Home Assistant comes in.

Home Assistant Has the Integrations I Need

HomeBridge is typically one of the main “go-tos” when it comes to adding third-party accessories to HomeKit, and I definitely gave it a try for quite a while. It’s a software “bridge” between HomeKit and other smart devices, adding support to non-HomeKit devices for Apple smart home owners. HomeBridge works well if you only need HomeKit integration and HomeBridge has the plugins that you need.

However, in the end, HomeBridge just simply didn’t have the integrations that I needed, while Home Assistant did. Plus, some of the integrations that are available both on HomeBridge and Home Assistant simply just work better in Home Assistant (I’m looking at you, Wyze).

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Home Assistant has a lot more plugins and integrations than HomeBridge does. In fact, Home Assistant as a platform just became Matter-certified, meaning your Matter devices can now directly integrate with the smart home platform.

I think Home Assistant is more supported as a platform than HomeBridge is, in part, because Home Assistant is a full-on company and HomeBridge is more of a community project. Home Assistant has physical hardware that they sell with the Home Assistant Green.

This is a pre-configured device that delivers a plug-and-play experience. It’s essentially a Raspberry Pi-esque unit that comes with Home Assistant pre-installed and pre-configured for an easier way to get started with the smart home platform.

The extra features and integrations of Home Assistant allowed me to utilize about a dozen smart plugs that I had at home which, previously, I had no way to integrate with HomeKit.

Home Assistant completely changed the game for me when it came to smart home automations because of this singular fact. Being able to bring a dozen extra smart plugs (plus wall switches and light bulbs) into HomeKit that I could never control before was a game-changer.

Home Assistant Transformed My Smart Home

My wife and I have a few scenes set up in HomeKit. The first is a “wind down” scene. This scene turns off all the overhead lighting that we have on smart switches, and flips on all the lamps. On top of that, it turns on our bedroom fan.

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We also have a “good night” scene that turns off all the lights in the house, turns off the Apple TV if it’s on, pauses music on the HomePod mini if it’s on, and also ensures the fan is on at the right speed (in case it’s been changed, or we skip the wind down scene).

There’s our “good morning” scene, which turns the kitchen light on, all the lamps in the house on, and turns the bedroom fan off. Then, finally, we have a “watch TV” scene which turns off specific lamps that glare on our TV for when we’re watching a show.

All of this wouldn’t be possible without Home Assistant—at least, not in my smart home setup. I could have gone out and spent hundreds of dollars on HomeKit-approved plugs and switches to accomplish this. But, with Home Assistant, I was able to use the accessories I already owned.

Looking for other ways to utilize Home Assistant? Here’s eight easy Home Assistant automations that you won’t want to miss out on.