Home app as UI?

The only devices that I don’t have in Hubitat are my Ring Doorbell and Camera. I think the OP had said something about being able to view camera feeds in the Apple Home app and with the Ring plug-in for Homebridge this works brilliantly.

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:+1: I did the same thing. Not perfect but it works good considering Ring's API is unofficial and reverse engineered.

Also the Nest (thermostat) Integration on Homebridge works better than trying to send the Hubitat integrated thermostat over. So I have it integrated in Homebridge using the plugin there, and Hubitat using the community app.

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So then does homebridge take the place of a HomePod mini or Apple TV as the hub that my phone talks to?

Not really. Homebridge will "talk" to HE and HomePod/AppleTV. Homebridge really acts as a gateway between the Apple Hub (HomePod/AppleTV) and Hubitat. Hope this makes sense.

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Technically, you don't even need a HomeKit "hub." You can run HomeBridge and integrate Hubitat devices just fine without one; the tradeoff is that you will not be able to view and control your devices remotely (just when you're on the same LAN) or set up Automations in the Home app (which, for example, you will need if you're doing this to use any "workarounds" for HomeKit devices you want to control from Hubitat that lack a native integration). I believe live video in Home also requires a hub, though Hubitat of course will not have any such devices.

But no, HomeBridge does not take the place of a hub. It works similarly to how the Hue Bridge integration works in Home: it shows up as a "bridge" that lets you integrate multiple other "real" devices through this one bridge device. Hue bulbs only talk to Home through the Bridge. Same idea here, just with Hubitat devices (or whatever else you put into HomeBridge). If you want a hub, you still need a supported Apple device to do that (nowadays I'd only recommend a HomePod or AppleTV; even though iPads are still fully supported on iOS 15, I've always had bad luck with them, and you'll miss out on whatever the new Home hub features are in iOS 16).

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Now Homebridge won't bring apple connected devices back to Hubitat correct? You need some other way to do that?

Correct, there is no good way to do that besides the good old virtual switch trick with rules in HomeKit. The only thing I do this for is for presence, as it is 100% reliable through homekit.

Sorry I totally forget I have this Homepod Mini sitting here. Homebridge itself will work locally only. If you want remote access you need to add a HomePod or Apple TV that will act as a gateway so you can talk to the Homebridge system while not at home. I originally started with no gateway, and then setup an old iPad but apple is actually phasing that out now. I eventually got a HomePod mini on sale at Costco to use for this. I just put the Homepod in my office and I can use it for voice control or music or whatever just like an Alexa.

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So you don't get status back on hubitat then :frowning: Are you just using your phone for presence?

If the device is integrated from Hubitat > HomeBridge > HomeKit, if you turn on/off in Homekit it has to go back through Hubitat to get the device to make the change. So the hub certainly knows about that. The only cases you cannot integrate back to Hubitat is HomeKit only devices or if you add an integration directly to Homebridge itself with a third party plugin, not via Hubitat sharing to Homebridge.

I mainly setup Homebridge to get the presense from phones yes, but once I started working on it, that's the only "Dashboard" I use now. So much faster to load and navigate since it is native to the OS. The Hubitat dashboards are only used on my PC for troubleshooting stuff.

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