Separate HomeBridge instance outside of Indigo

[siclark]

There's even a plugin for my tumble drier

Which tumble dryer do you have?

Bosch

[Londonmark]

And probably the most useful of them all is the Harmony plugin that presents my remotes as if they were HomeKit TVs.. works bloody marvellously!

Which one are you using? I'm trying the nicoduj one but can only get volume and mute to show up in the Home App. Homebridge says I have a television accessory, but I can't see it anywhere in the Home App.

Yup it's nicoduj's.. it's probably your config, wanna send me your config.json and I can have a lookie?

(Sorry meant to post that earlier and forgot to click submit after writing it )

Thanks. Think I’ve got it working. Missed the detailed bit in the homebridge log where it said I had to add the tv manually in the Home App. Now I’ve done that I’m golden.

Suspect when I play around for a bit more I will figure out a bit more - such as how to have options to launch specific activities from the outset rather than just the default.

[cesarvog]

So, is it possible to have for instance Homebridge.io on a Raspberry Pi running and also still have the Indigo plugin on the Mac running?
Will it act as a second bridge and will be visible this way in Homekit?
Any drawbacks/interferences?

You can run it on a raspberry pi, or indeed the same Mac as Indigo

it will add a second bridge

no drawbacks/interference that I've experienced

Thanks for your posts. I went ahead and installed HomeBridge.io on the same Mac running Indigo 7.0.4, as per your advice above.
I was then able to install it's Doorbird plugin. Both setups were very user friendly. Once the doobird plugin was up and running I was able to see live video from my video doorbell with no noticeable delay and was also able to trigger it's door relay directly from the Home iPhone App. This will open a whole new WAF avenue here. Thanks!

Cesar

[yassi]

I've installed Homebridge.io on my Synology NAS (Docker package) as a second bridge, works!

Yassi

[siclark]

There's even a plugin for my tumble drier

Which tumble dryer do you have?

Bosch

Nice, needed to create a Bosch developer account.. but within 5 mins I can see when the machine is running, and even start programs. Now I just need Octopus to come and fit me a smart meter so I can trigger it to run when the electricity price falls overnight.

[siclark]

Yes, about three seconds for me. With the config that HomeKit Bridge used, I had a slower experience, and sometimes the video feeds would cut out after a bit. Latest HomeBridge + ffmpeg I do not see that problem. I'm also running HomeBridge on a docker container.

What do you mean about the Security Spy plugin? The SS iOS app for me takes several seconds to connect to the server. Once connected, bringing up a feed is near instant.

Running on BgSur, I see the Indigo HKB setup pointing to SS being much faster to pull up the live stream, <1second vs 3 seconds for the standalone Homebridge.io setup. However, the advantage that the latter brings is that audio now works in the iOS Home app, and my cameras in the app are independent from SS in case there are any issues there (sometimes after powercuts I have had it not restart properly due to network drive issues).

Yet to look at the motion detection, I use SS for that at the moment so interested to see if i get more from using Homekit to do it. I would expect SS's logic is more advanced.

[siclark]

I’ve set up some automations in Eve, which exposed more device states than the Apple Home app, to sync homebrodge.io devices back to indigo. That involves meta relays in indigo published with HKB and 2 rules, one for on and one for off.
Not something I will do a lot but now gets status of my tumble drier power and door open/closed into indigo where I also have power consumption and temp/humidity

[yassi]

I’ve set up some automations in Eve, which exposed more device states than the Apple Home app, to sync homebrodge.io devices back to indigo. That involves meta relays in indigo published with HKB and 2 rules, one for on and one for off.
Not something I will do a lot but now gets status of my tumble drier power and door open/closed into indigo where I also have power consumption and temp/humidity

Can you please explain what do you mean with "to sync homebrodge.io devices back to indigo. That involves meta relays in indigo published with HKB and 2 rules, one for on and one for off. "?
Don't get it. How can you sync the Homebridge.io devices back to Indigo? And what for meta relays?

Thanks for clarification.
Yassi

[siclark]

Meta devices are indigo plugin. Relay is a dummy on/off switch you create with that plugin
Publish that device to HomeKit with HKB
In the Eve app, or Homeif it shows the device, create a rule that is triggered if native HomeKit device turns on, then turn on your dummy device in HomeKit. That makes your dummy device in indigo turn on.
Same again for turning off.

[yassi]

Meta devices are indigo plugin. Relay is a dummy on/off switch you create with that plugin
Publish that device to HomeKit with HKB
In the Eve app, or Homeif it shows the device, create a rule that is triggered if native HomeKit device turns on, then turn on your dummy device in HomeKit. That makes your dummy device in indigo turn on.
Same again for turning off.

Ok, got it now.
Thanks!

[vtmikel]

Yes, about three seconds for me. With the config that HomeKit Bridge used, I had a slower experience, and sometimes the video feeds would cut out after a bit. Latest HomeBridge + ffmpeg I do not see that problem. I'm also running HomeBridge on a docker container.

What do you mean about the Security Spy plugin? The SS iOS app for me takes several seconds to connect to the server. Once connected, bringing up a feed is near instant.

Running on BgSur, I see the Indigo HKB setup pointing to SS being much faster to pull up the live stream, <1second vs 3 seconds for the standalone Homebridge.io setup. However, the advantage that the latter brings is that audio now works in the iOS Home app, and my cameras in the app are independent from SS in case there are any issues there (sometimes after powercuts I have had it not restart properly due to network drive issues).

Yet to look at the motion detection, I use SS for that at the moment so interested to see if I get more from using Homekit to do it. I would expect SS's logic is more advanced.

I'm not quite sure why I still have a 2-3 second delay. Honestly, it doesn't bother me but certainly would welcome a faster response. I have Homebridge connecting through SS, not directly to my cameras. As you can see I'm using the RSTP stream. Maybe that's why.

My use case is that it's easier for my wife to use the Home app as a single place of manual control. I still use the SS native app when home. It's nice that the Home app "just works" when outside of the home without worrying about the manual setup for forwarding and security concerns.

Note: Homebridge/Homekit does not do motion detection itself. It just accepts the triggers from an external source. So you get the "brains" of SS plus the Home app. I use the curl command in SS to trigger that. SS is definitely more advanced especially now with the person, vehicle, and general motion detection.

[MarcoGT]

I am also trying to install a second instance of homebridge but after having installed it, I saw that the config.json of the Indigo Plugin HB war overwritten by the new one (I had a copy of it); is it possible to specify the location where the new homebridge instance shall be installed?

Thanks

EDIT: I see that using homebridge.io is possible to specify the name of the second bridge so that a second folder is created.
I am also using the Config UI, but when the service starts I get

Code: Select all

Error: listen EADDRINUSE: address already in use :::8581
[6/5/2021, 4:05:59 PM] [Homebridge UI] Another process or service on this host is using port 8581.
[6/5/2021, 4:05:59 PM] [Homebridge UI] Please stop the other service or change the port you have assigned to homebridge-config-ui-x.
[6/5/2021, 4:05:59 PM] [Homebridge UI] Ending process now.

and doing a netstat I see that there is another service listening on the same port but doing some "redirect" to the iMac (services are running on MacMini).
I tried to change the port in the config but I still get the same error.

Any idea?

[mikejandreau]

Just getting into Homebridge and loving it so far!

I added two test cameras via FFMpeg, as outlined here. The still image loads fine, but I try to get into the camera's live feed, it loads perpetually, then eventually fails with "No Response" and says the camera is not responding.

Any pointers on what I thought look for to troubleshoot this?