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Then open source bridge solution known as Homebridge is a great way to expand the capabilities of your HomeKit setup. As an unofficial open-source project, though, it does demand some extra knowledge and a willingness to tinker to an extent.

Previously you wouldn’t even consider it without some significant Linux knowledge and a very hobbyist mindset, as it needs a lot of command-line massaging and editing of config files.

To help simplify this experience and open up the benefits of Homebridge to a whole lot more people, the community run HOOBS project was created.

What is HOOBS?

HOOBS stands for HomeBridge Out Of Box System. Essentially, it’s an enhanced version of HomeBridge that adds some very nice use facing features and comes on a pre-built image to avoid you needing to set things up yourself.

The enhancements include a very slick web-based interface to largely negate the need to manage config files directly, a certification program for plugins to help guide you to well established and supported options, and user-friendly monitoring for your HomeBridge server so you can more easily see what’s going on and resolve issues (or at least know what issues to ask for help with).

HOOBS offers three ways to get your initial setup done and have a server up and running quickly. In order of increasing cost these are:

Download the image and image a Micro SD card yourself.
Buy just a pre-imaged Micro SD card you can plug into and existing Raspberry Pi.
Buy a pre-configured Raspberry Pi based device directly from them.

Setting up HOOBS

What You’ll need

The cheapest option is the most DIY. But it’s not a huge challenge. You’ll need an inexpensive Raspberry Pi device to use as your server and a Micro SD card to put the image on, unless you’ve opted to buy a pre-imaged one.

HOOBS will run on a Raspberry Pi 3b+ or 4, but the 4 will give you better video streaming performance if you want to run cameras through it. Officially you can run it with 1GB of RAM, but I’d go for a at least 2GB model for a little more wiggle room.

I’ve gone with this CanaKit Raspberry Pi 4 Starter Kit, as it has everything you need to get started, including the case. You’ll want that so you can stick the server somewhere out of the way and know it won’t get damaged.

For the Micro SD card, a high performance 8GB or 16GB model is what you want. This Samsung EVO Class 10 is perfect. You’ll need a way to plug this into your computer to install the image, so if you don’t have a Micro SD slot or reader you might just want to go for a higher model kit, like this one that has a 32GB card and a USB reader included.

1 - Prepare the Image

If you’ve opted to buy a pre-imaged card, skip to step 2.

The HOOBS project is offering the image for free, but they do ask for a small donation to support their efforts. On the download page the price field is editable, and you can put 0 if you wish, but if you’re going to be depending on this to run part of your smart home it’s probably worth supporting them with a few bucks.

Thew download will get you a zip file with a standard .img file inside. Just unzip that ready for selecting with the imaging tool you’ll use.

The Micro SD card will need a little prep. If it’s a fresh one, just a quick format with FAT32 is sufficient, but if it’s one that came with the Raspberry Pi, you’ll be best to delete any existing partitions on it and make a new one to format.

I could write a whole other tutorial on using the various imaging tools, but this one from SparkFun will do nicely as it points you to the downloads for the imaging tools for each platform and steps through the (fairly simple) process.

2 - Boot up the system

Regardless of the option you chose to get here, we just need to plug in the Raspberry Pi, connect an Ethernet cable, insert the Micro SD card and power it on.

We need Ethernet only for the initial setup, so if you want to use Wi-Fi don’t worry, we’ll set that up in a moment.

Before we can do that, you’ll need one of the HOOBS apps. These are available for pretty much all operating systems, so you can use whichever ones work for you. When you first install the app you’ll need to create an account. Register, verify your address using the email they send you and you’ll be good to go.

HOOBS app login page for creating and account — Create an account to start

3 - Connect to your server

The HOOBS app will scan your local network for your running HOOBS instance. Once it’s been plugged in and turned on for a few minutes it should be able to respond and will show up as an option with a green light. Select that and you’ll be logged in to the management interface.

Now we can leave it running on Ethernet or you can set up Wi-Fi. To do that:

Click the Settings icon (the gear) on the main menu and select Network.
Select your Wi-Fi network SSID from the list the device has detected.
Enter the Password for your network.
Click Connect.

That’s it. Once the Wi-Fi is showing as connected you can disconnect the Ethernet cable. Naturally you won’t have any plugins installed yet, so it’s not going to do much. But HOOBS makes that easier too.

4 - Adding your first plugin

If you’ve gone through all this trouble, you probably know what accessory you want to add first. You’ll need to search for that in the Plugin section of the interface. HomeBridge has two kinds of plugins, called Accessories and Platforms.

An accessory is a device that cash be directly controlled by HomeKit, where a Platform requires communication via the vendor’s web service.

A platform plugin won’t require anything more to be added once it’s configured in HOOBS, but an Accessory needs you to add individual devices in the Accessories section after installing the plugin. This is done simply from the plugin configuration screen.

Let’s install a platform plugin for Ring cameras. Click on the Bridges icon on the tool bar, then click on +Add Accessory. Enter the accessory or brand you’re looking for in the search field, in this case ‘ring’.

In this case it’s an easy one, as the Ring plugin is pretty popular and well supported. You can tell that easily by the HOOBS Certified badge on the bottom of the listing. Hover over the result you want and click Install. You’ll be prompted to create a new Bridge to host the plugin. You’ll need to do this, but don’t worry about the settings. The defaults will work fine in the vast majority of cases.

Click Install below the bridge settings to start. While it’s in progress you’ll see a spinning blue circle on the menu bar. This will turn solid green once it’s done.

Once installed you can click on the Bridges menu icon again to see and configure your new plugin. Most plugins will require some sort of configuration to add device details or login credentials. In this case we need to log into the Ring service.

To configure the plugin hover over the bridge and click Configure. This will show the bridge configuration and all installed plugins. Click the gear icon next to the plugin in the list to access its Plugin Settings.

Once you’re ready to add the bridge into HomeKit, go again to the Bridge menu icon, hover over the bridge and click Scan. This will generate the QR code you need to add the bridge into the Apple Home app.

Additional Features of HOOBS

The HOOBS web interface adds a number of nice features to help manage your HomeBridge instance. Key among these is a clean and easy to use configuration interface for managing the various settings of the server, including network ports, localization details, and HomeKit settings for the bridge.

An easy to access live view of the system log is right there on the toolbar, which is vital for diagnosing issues and knowing what to ask if you need help. Equally handy is an Advanced view of your HomeBridge configuration file, which allows you to check and edit things directly in the interface if required.

Finally, the ability to back up and restore your configuration easily provides a valuable tool when adding new plugins and making changes to an established HOOBS setup. Nothing is more frustrating than having a chunk of your smart home fall over for some unexplained reason due to a bad plugin or a broken configuration file.

Mobile Apps

HOOBS now has native apps for all major platforms including Android and iOS. These app provide the same functionality as the desktop versions and the web interface, but in a more mobile friendly format. You can run your HOOBS instance completely from these mobile versions without the need to use a desktop system at all, including doing the initial setup and Wi-Fi configuration.

Conclusion

Homebridge can be a very useful addition to any HomeKit setup, and enables a wide range of unsupported products and services to be added to your smart home. Using HOOBS is a great way to get this up and running, and offers a range of user friendly enhancements over a standard Homebridge install.

Keep in mind, though, that we’re still dealing with a community supported project, and things can break from time to time. There is a lot of support out there, and the HOOBS community adds another layer to this on top of the general enthusiast support for Homebridge.

HOOBS makes it easier to see what is wrong, and get the info you need to ask for help, as well as making access to the system easier in the event something does need to be fixed. While it’s still not for the casual user, any HomeKit enthusiast that wants to get more devices working with Siri and automations should certainly look at getting into this.

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