Home Smart Home… Welcome to another Post about Portainer and useful Docker Container. You’ll learn how to install Homebridge in Portainer to use third Party Functions and Hardware in Apple Homekit (App).
You should have Portainer already running if you followed my Posts – Anyway you can find the basic Portainer Setup here.
Requirements
- Raspberry Pi (3B or newer)*
- Micro SD Card*
- Working Portainer Installation (HowTo)
Homebridge Provisioning
Click on Volumes to create a new Volume called “homebridge”. This volume will be used for our persistent Data (Config, Backups). Keep all Settings as default and click on “Create the Volume”
Now switch to Menu “Containers” and click on “+ Add container”. Configure:
- Name: homebridge
- Image: oznu/homebridge:ubuntu
In the Advanced container settings Part go to Tab “Volumes” and click on “+ map additional volume” and configure:
| container | volume | Hint |
| /homebridge | homebridge – local | The Volume we created before |
In Tab “Network”, change Network Type to “host” and set as Hostname “homebridge”
Now go to Tab “Env” and click von “Add an environment variable”. We’ll need 5 Variables, so you can click it 5 times.
| name | value | Hint |
| PGID | 1000 | Group ID (default 1000) |
| PUID | 1000 | User ID (default 1000) |
| HOMEBRIDGE_CONFIG_UI | 1 | 1 = Enable Config Website |
| HOMEBRIDGE_CONFIG_UI_PORT | 8581 | Config Website Port |
| TZ | Europe/Berlin | Your own Timezone |
In the last Step, we’ll configure the “Restart policy” – Usually you want to have Homebridge always running – So configure it to “Always”.
Finally deploy the Container from “Actions”:
Please be patient, depending on your Internet Connection, the Image will be downloaded first and the View will switch to “Container list” after the Container was started automatically:
Homebridge Frontend
You should now be able to configure Homebridge from its Web Interface. The Admin Panel is reachable at your Portainer Hosts IP followed by the Port, which we entered before in our Env Variables (8581).
http://your_portainer_host_ip:8581
The Login Credentials are User: “admin” with Password “admin”
After you are logged on, add the Homebridge to your Apple Home Environment. To do so, open the Apple Home App and click on “+” on top right to add a new Device. Now scan the QR Code displayed on your Homebridge Website on the top left Side.
Congratulations – you enabled Homebridge in your Apple Home Environment. Now you can continue to install 3rd Party Software and Devices from the Plugins Page.
Need Help to get started? Check out an example Plugin Setup:
*Amazon Affiliate Link