Access devices when outside the home with homekit

is there a way to use homekit with openhab while outside the home with out using a home hub (apple tv/homepod)

Nope - homepod, apple tv, or ipad is required to be in the house to access homekit items from a different network.

That being said, this OpenHAB and there are a number of ways to connect to your OpenHAB system from outside the network. To name a few, you could VPN into a habpanel, use OpenHAB cloud, connect with IFTTT, use telegram, etc.

I’m sure most of us have our “favorite” way to connect. I use HomeKit almost exclusively as my interface - but we have apple devices running so we can connect away from home…

thanks for the reply :smile:
i have another question , can i add all device types (that home kit uses) in the items file? it seems i can only add a few like a switch or a light , when there is others

Well that’s a loaded question with 3 answers (that I know about).

1- check here for some discussion about the current efforts to improve the openhab native plugin. Check here for some discussion about how to install the latest development homekit version.

2- check here for a tutorial I put together a while ago about using node red to “expand” homekit abilities. Note I was not the first (nor last) to use this setup, check here for some other examples.

3- If you’re a fan of NodeJS then you can use this homebridge plugin to connect to homekit

Welcome to the community! There is a lot to learn… Option 1 above is nice because it is “native openhab” and keeps everything together. Option 2 is what I’ve used in my house for the last 9 months or so, works great. Option 3 should also work great, I’ve never used homebridge with openhab but I have used homebridge and it does indeed work great.

Good luck!

Another device that will expose homekit to the internet is an ipad. As long as it has the home app, it can be set as the hub,