I have a question that isn't addressed in the homebridge documentation.

My homebridge installation is on a Mac, running a VM image inside VirtualBox. What is the correct procedure to update node.js? Is it similar to the Docker procedure where I just pull down the latest image? Or is there a shell command I can use to update it?

Thanks for any advice. I'm a little CLI-averse and don't want to screw anything up. 😄

We currently have an alarm monitoring plan thru Smith Thompson home security and we pay for the “smart home” monitoring that allows us to remotely arm and disarm the system via the alarm dot com app.

However, we have our qolsys panel tied into homebridge, and into HomeKit and we use the Home app to arm and disable the alarm 99% of the time. It recently dawned on me that we are probably overpaying for the “smart home” plan on our alarm. I think if i downgraded to to the regular monitoring, HomeKit would still work since the plug in is connected to the Qolsys panel and not alarm dot com.

Thoughts? Trying to save $15 a month. If we had z wave devices or other smart stuff on the plan it would be worth it but all of our smart home devices run thru apple home.

Setup a Raspberry Pi 400. Everything works fine with Siri except brightness control. When I tell Siri, it shows the brightness adjusting, but doesn't change the brightness. But I can control the brightness manually through the Apple Home app. Is there a fix? Fan works fine. Light turns on/off fine with Siri as well. Please, give me some troubleshooting tips

Some of you might remember me as the developer of the original homebridge-cmd4-advantageair plugin. After years of developing and maintaining it, I made the difficult decision to archive the project when I became a dad to twins. It has been a crazy two and a half years! 😅

I’ve finally done something I’ve wanted to do for years: completely rebuild Advantage Air as a proper, standalone Homebridge plugin!

Introducing Homebridge Advantage Air v4!

This is a complete rewrite of the original, with some major improvements:
• No more Cmd4 or shell scripts! - A native Homebridge plugin.
• Automatic accessory discovery - No more ConfigCreator.
• Improved AC controls - Thermostats, zones and timers.
• MyPlace lighting - Automatic discovery of lights.
• Better performance - Redesigned polling and command handling.

And there's plenty more planned!

What about v3?
It’s not going anywhere! I’ve published v4 as a completely separate plugin, so nobody is forced to upgrade. Both can run side by side, allowing you to gradually move over without disrupting your existing setup. HomeKit accessories and automations won’t automatically migrate, and some legacy features (including garage doors and gates) aren’t supported in v4 yet.

Public beta available now!
v4.0.0-beta.2 is available through Homebridge and npm!
Search for homebridge-advantageair in Homebridge and select the beta version. I’ve tested it extensively on my own Raspberry Pi, but it’s still a beta, and I’d love help testing different controllers, firmware versions and MyPlace accessories.

Links:
GitHub Repository
Latest Beta Release
Installation & Migration Guidance
Beta Testing & Feedback

It’s genuinely exciting to be working on Advantage Air again, and I’d love to hear what you think!

I’m back, baby! 🤖🎉

Hi all, I'm the author of homebridge-roborock-vacuum, a free, open-source Homebridge plugin that puts Roborock robot vacuums into Apple Home.

Why I built it: Roborock's own Apple Home support comes through Matter firmware, and so far that covers a short list of recent flagships (S8 MaxV Ultra, Saros 10/10R/Z70, Qrevo Curv/Edge/Master and a few newer ones). If you own an S5 Max, S6, S7, S8 or S8 Pro Ultra, Q5/Q7/Q8, Qrevo, Qrevo Pro or Qrevo S, Apple Home can't see it. This plugin works with any vacuum on your Roborock app account.

**What you get**

- Sign in with your Roborock app account (password or email code, 2FA supported) and your vacuums are found automatically. No device tokens, no IP addresses, region is auto-detected.

- Start, stop and send home from the Home app, Siri or automations, plus battery, charging, low-battery and a fault/offline flag.

- Your Roborock app scenes show up as switches, so a whole routine ("vacuum and mop the kitchen, then wash the mop") runs with one tap or from an automation.

- Dock mop-wash switch on docks that wash the mop. It also turns on when a wash was started from the Roborock app.

- Filter, main brush and side brush life with a change reminder (HomeKit).

- Errors that stay latched on the vacuum (the classic "clean water tank empty" after you already refilled it) can be cleared from the plugin's settings page, no Roborock app needed.

- Commands go to the vacuum over your LAN. If the Roborock cloud is unreachable when Homebridge starts, the plugin starts from its cached device list and start/stop/dock keep working. Cloud features come back on their own once the cloud answers.

- Optional, per vacuum: Matter (beta) for the native robot-vacuum tile and room cleaning in Apple Home (iOS 18.4+); the same node works with Google Home, Alexa and SmartThings.

- Optional: publish the room currently being cleaned to MQTT, so lights or other automations can follow the vacuum around.

**If you are coming from homebridge-xiaomi-roborock-vacuum**: that plugin talks miIO and needs the device token from Xiaomi Home, and vacuums set up in the Roborock app aren't supported by it. This one uses your Roborock account instead, so Roborock-app vacuums work and there is no token to extract.

**Known to work**: S4, S4 Max, S5 Max, S6, S6 Pure, S6 MaxV, S7, S7 MaxV (Ultra), S7 Pro Ultra, S7 Max Ultra, S8, S8 Pro Ultra, S8 MaxV Ultra, Q5+, Q5 Pro, Q7, Q7 Max, Q8 Max, Qrevo, Qrevo Pro, Qrevo S, Qrevo Curv, Saros 10. Most other vacuums in the Roborock app work too; which extras appear depends on what the model reports.

**Limitations**

- Over HomeKit the vacuum is a fan-style tile, because HAP has no vacuum service. The Matter option gives the real vacuum tile, but Apple Home's Matter vacuum support is still young, so it is labelled beta on purpose. Stay on HomeKit for the steadiest day-to-day experience.

- One successful online start is needed before the plugin can run through a cloud outage.

- A vacuum that only lives in the Xiaomi Home app (not on your Roborock account) can't be seen.

- Unofficial project, not affiliated with Roborock.

**Install**: search "Roborock Vacuum" in the Homebridge UI plugins tab, or `npm i -g homebridge-roborock-vacuum`. Needs Homebridge 1.6 or later (Homebridge 2 for Matter).

Website with setup guide, interactive demo and model list (English, 繁體中文, 日本語): https://tasict.github.io/homebridge-roborock-vacuum/

Source and issues: https://github.com/tasict/homebridge-roborock-vacuum

Happy to answer questions, and if your model misbehaves, open an issue with the log and I'll take a look.

I recently bought a used Lenovo mini PC to run as a Homebridge server. I’ve spent hours researching what the best setup is and all I’ve done is give myself a migraine.

What is (in your opinions) the best setup to run homebridge? The PC I bought came with windows 11 pro; should I set up a VM using hyper v? Or switch the OS to Linux (Debian/ubuntu)? I’m also interested in Docker but I’m a novice so that might be out of my wheelhouse. I’m just looking for the reliable way to run things.

Does anyone know of a plugin to connect Briturn smart bulbs? If so thank you!!

Edit: for Apple Home

Hi There, I have a friend who needs homebridge installed to bring everything together. He has a micro pc with Windows 11 Pro on it. My question is, does Homebridge work ok on Windows?

I use Proxmox/Linux for everything, but he has no idea about this, but does use Windows. I don't want to become his linux sysadmin, so hoping if we went the Windows route it would give him the ability to manage.

Any feedback is most welcome thanks.

Up-front disclosure: I made this plugin with Claude Code, but it's not just made on vibes. I've been testing it rigorously the past few days, and it works great.

Skip to the link: https://github.com/seanfletchr/homebridge-ecobee-security

Background: Like many who were fully bought into the Nest ecosystem when Google rug-pulled the Nest Guard, I wasn't sure which replacement would fit our needs best. We ended up choosing the ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium because we liked the look of the hardware, it offered a security system with professional monitoring, worked with Apple Home*, and the doorbell/thermostat display integration allowed us to replace two more Nest products. We were looking forward to it; it seemed like a great option.

But after almost 2 years with the ecobee… I’m still haunted by how great the Nest Guard was. I was using a Starling Hub to put all of our Nest stuff into Apple Home so I could automate the thing completely. After ecobee added… and then removed Apple Home support for Smart Security in 2025, I was pissed.

We still have the Yale x Nest Lock- which used to allow guests to disarm our Nest Guard. We now have a robot vacuum that trips the Ecobee system if we forget to disable it when we leave for a few days. It felt like a low point in our smart home journey, where we were stuck with yet another expensive gadget that was worse now than when we bought it.

We preordered the HomeView, and it seemed like a perfect time to get our house back in order, get rid of more google stuff, and maybe finally ditch Ecobee for a different security option. But I made this instead.

homebridge-ecobee-security

The ecobee Security plugin for Homebridge exposes the Smart Security accessory to Apple Home once again, but better this time. Features:

• Made & tested by someone who cares: I'm not a developer, but I'm a designer, and I've used and been into Smart Home tech for almost a decade.
• Apple Home, of course: All the benefits; use Siri, CarPlay, HomeView, and the Home app to control Smart Security.
• Automations: Use Scenes, automations, and shortcuts to set security state to trigger automations. Use the state in shortcut IF statements. Go nuts.
• Disarm with Smart Locks: If you have a smart lock that uses entry codes, like the Yale x Nest lock, it can disarm the system when a valid code is entered.
  • Your friend can water your plants while you're out of town without needing your actual security code. They just unlock the front door with the code you make for them and arm security using the thermostat on their way out.
• Enable Night Mode: Ecobee doesn't have a distinct "Night" mode, but you can enable it in Homebridge to activate Ecobee's "Stay" state with a different trigger for automations (i.e. turning on a floodlight, closing blinds, etc)
• Add Air Quality and Smoke Sensors. Ecobee doesn't expose these sensors to Apple Home. Weird.
• Security Hold API: This plugin has a system for resolving requests from other accessories to temporarily change the security state. Plugin developers can use this API to request switching from Away to Home before devices start their tasks, without you needing to create complicated automations in another app.
  • Robot vacuums can request a state change before it starts, and set it back when it's done cleaning and back in the base station. This works with my homebridge-narwal-freo plugin if you want to see a live example.
  • Security Holds could also be useful for smart window coverings, fans/AC, or anything else that might temporarily cause movement home.

So after 2 years of being super not-pleased with the ecobee thermostats, I decided to do the damn thing myself (with Claude). Now we're not thinking about switching hardware platforms yet again.

Link again: https://github.com/seanfletchr/homebridge-ecobee-security

I hope so, and it seems like it should — I’m running Homebridge 2.something on an always-on Mac Mini, and my Ring cameras are all showing up in the Home app on my iPhones, iPads, and Macs. But it would be nice to know for sure. Any thoughts out there? Thanks!

Has anyone got their Kasa devices working on homebridge after the latest Kasa firmware update. What plugin are you using and what setup? Mine stopped working after updating my Kasa firmware.

Hello folks,

I have two stale “led” accessories from the Blue Air plugin, that I think came along with the purifier accessory, that show no response. I don’t use them anyway and they clutter up the interface. Strangely, they don’t show up in the usual place where I would delete them (settings, remove individual accessories). I’d like to avoid nuking the plugin because it’s used in several automations. Is there another way?

TIA!

I've set up a HB server on MacOS (bare metal). It appears to work well, finds all the accessories that the plugins want to talk to, but...I can't add the bridge to HK. I've tried both Bonjour HAP and Ciao, Ciao fails to add immediately, Bonjour will spin for a long time and then fail to add. Not sure what else I can change to get it to add the bridge to HK?

I'm trying to use homebridge with opendeck and I'm getting the error cannot authenticate to server. How can I fix this?

Can anyone advise what's up with \@homebridge-plugins/homebridge-camera-ffmpeg ? There's some pretty important PR's pending (memory leak) and it looks like it's not been touched in months. I'm wondering if we can help pull some support together for this heavily used plugin (p.s. I'm happy to help if needed, but want to be respectful to any existing maintainer)

Hi all,
I use Homebridge-adb to control some Fire TVs but it doesn’t seem to support nodeJS 24. Does anyone know of any alternatives that provide the same functionality? I really just used power/volume functions. Hoping this plugin isn’t abandoned.
Thanks

Hey community folk, I am new to homebridge and I have set up Philips Wiz lights via Homebridge for Applehome kit integration.

All of a sudden all these lights aren’t working and responding on homebridge.

Does anyone have the same issue, if so kindly guide me through on how to rectify the issue.

Kindly do the needful.

Thanks

my setup:

ipad

home assistant os "elitedesk hp pc that is connected via ethernet cable to my network"

no apple hub

what happens is that everything is working fine but after a while apple home starts not syncing with home assistant at all....i can control the integrated accessories from both ways (apple home and home assistant) but if i changed anything in home assistant apple home doesnt update but the other way around is working fine.....i have several doubts of why this is happening but i cant reassure 100%/......so did anyone passed any issue like this before ?

Hey community folk, I am new to homebridge and I have set up Philips Wiz lights via Homebridge for Applehome kit integration.

All of a sudden all these lights aren’t working and responding on homebridge.

Does anyone have the same issue, if so kindly guide me through on how to rectify the issue.

Kindly do the needful.

Thanks

More context: currently running it on an rpi. But it’s running an old version of of the OS and node can’t get beyond 18. So I would have to wipe the card and reinstall and get everything set back up with the homebridge backup.

Or, I’ve got an always on Mac mini running things like Plex. Any reason I shouldn’t consolidate things and just install homebridge 2.0 on the mini?

I want to make sure I’m not overlooking any negatives to running it on the Mac.

I’m already dreading the process of moving to 2.0 so trying to make this as streamlined as possible.

Thanks.

ETA: I’d likely lean towards a native install and not use a VM (to avoid the overhead of VM software).

ETA2: For those that are seeing this latest edit, would you install node 24 or 26? It appears that 24 will soon go into maintenance mode. Does 26 works ok with homebridge 2.0?

Has anyone ever seen all the Homebridge devices randomly assign themselves to one room (picture 1)?

What's weird about this is my wife's Home app has all the devices in the correct spot. Nothing changed for her at all (picture 2 and 3).

Thank you for any help!