The Missing Link

The missing link between smart home devices and Apples own HomeKit. HomeKit is Apples smart home technology, which is baked within the different operating systems of iOS, iPadOS, WatchOS and MacOS.

HomeKit in native to the OS its super fast in completing commands, and being Apple very secure but with this comes a level of limitations.

Smart home device manufacturers have to invest a lot in Apple Certification and implement chip technology for it to work within HomeKit this pushes the price up on the devices compared to cloud based platforms of Google Home and Amazon Alexa.

Homebridge, is a powerful server in which you’re able to run on something as simple as a Raspberry Pi or as powerful as a Mac desktop, and pairs to your HomeKit home as bridge. Within Homebridge you install plugins related to the item(s) you wish to use within Apples Homekit, once the plugin is installed and configured it allows the device to be controlled just as if its a certified HomeKit device.

The link above has all the information and instructions to install on your chosen device/operating system, from there its a world of support and community run projects creating the plugins.

Plugins come in 3 different flavours should we say,

1. Click and install type with very little input from the user.

2. Some input from the user, finding extra settings within the apps.

3. Raw editing of the config file to make the plugin work.

When Homebridge started all the plugins began as option 3, and slowly as the community grew the browser based frontend was developed, this helps to maintain and tweak settings, install plugins such as option 2, and now supported plugins with a simple click and install followed by adding your login details just like an app would request exist.

The Homebridge project is always releasing updates and new plugins for new services, and going the next step to verify plugins to make sure they work to a basic standard.