New (and Free!) Home Assistant Remote Access - Looking For Beta Testers reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- quinbd · 2023-12-20 22:41 Hello! I'm looking for beta testers for a new project I'm working on to provide free, secure, and private remote access to Home Assistant - with [Alexa](https://homeway.io/alexa?source=reddit_selfhost) and [Google Home](https://homeway.io/googleassistant?source=reddit_selfhost) support! It's called [Homeway.io](https://homeway.io/?source=reddit_selfhost) 🚀 **I want to put this upfront.** I know privacy and security are essential to this subreddit, and they're very important to me as well. **Homeway has a very strong** [privacy](https://learn.homeway.io/privacy/) **and** [security](https://learn.homeway.io/security) **commitment; we will never sell, store, or give away your data.** Homeway tunnels your data from your browser to your Home Assistant and back, then it's deleted. All your data stays locally in your home; I'm just building a secure way to access it. I have written an [extensive page describing Homway's system security](https://learn.homeway.io/security); I would love feedback and scrutiny! I'm looking for anyone who wants to give Homeway a try and provide feedback. If you're interested, [follow this link to get started.](https://homeway.io/getstarted?source=reddit_selfhost) The setup only takes about 20 seconds and should be super easy. **As a** **special thanks, for a time-limited,** anyone who tires Homeway and sends feedback (good or bad), will be getting Supporter Perks for life, which means you get free and unlimited access for life. The point of Homeway is to benefit the community, so I really want to hear all feedback, good, bad, and ugly. # FAQ: **Didn't I see those post on Monday?** Yes, you did. :) I failed to see the subreddit rule about posting information **related** to self-hosted projects only on Wednesday, so the other post was taken down. (sorry about that mods!) ​ **Why are you making a Home Assistant remote access solution?** Good question! I have two main motivations: 1. I want to create a system that's extremely easy to set up, but is also 100% secure and requires no maintenance. I have been in the software and security space for 10 years and have seen countless data leaks and exploits due to user-configured systems that were 99% correct but 1% wrong. Most other systems also require overhead maintenance to keep them up and running. **My goal with Homeway is to have an easy, secure, private, and no-fuss remote access solution!** 2. Nabu Casa is a great remote access option, but it has a security model some users might not like. To be brief, Nuba Casa exposes your local Home Assistant to the public internet and relies on the hardening of Home Assistant and your user account to keep it secure. In general, most security experts advise against exposing anything on your home LAN directly to the internet; it's possible for bad actors to brute force your password, exploit a security issue in Home Assistant, or exploit security issues in any Python libs that Home Assitant uses. You can [search Google or Bing and find hundreds of Home Assistant instances exposed to the internet from Nabu Casa.](https://www.bing.com/search?q=site%3Aui.nabu.casa&first=2) **Homeway doesn't expose your Home Assistant to the public internet at all.** I created Homeway to give users another choice in security models. Homeway's security model has two layers of security: your Homeway account and your Home Assitant account. To get remote access, you must be logged into your Homeway account. Homeway has advanced account protections like code-based 2-factor login, 3rd party login providers, and email-based code challenges whenever you try to log in from new IP. Once you have remote access, there's a second layer of security; you must log in to your Home Assitant account. You must log into your Home Assistant, which will create a user session on your browser, just as it would if you were at home. Homeway doesn't store any of your data, including login credentials, session info, or anything. Thus, Homeway has no access to your Home Assistant instance. For full details on Homeway's entire end-to-end security, [see this post.](https://learn.homeway.io/security) ​ **Free Remove Access? How Is That Possible?** Since I aim to ensure Home Assistant users have secure access, I want Homeway to be as accessible as possible. Thus, it must be super easy to set up and, ideally, free. So Homeway will have 100% free remote access, but there will be limits to keep our hosting costs in line. I have a "[project supporter](https://homeway.io/supporter?soruce=reddit_selfhost)" model setup for Homeway, where a user can optionally pay **$2.49/month**. Since you help support the project, you get Supporter Perks! With Supporter Perks, you get unlimited remote access, along with Alexa and Google Assistant support. Ideally, I would like to make the Alexa and Google Assistant support free, so users can also have a secure way to use them, but the services are quite intensive on the Homeway backend. Thus, they are only available to those who support the project. **Homeway will never sell or share your private data to fund the project or for any other reason.** If the Homeway model can't work financially through project supporters, I will shut it down. ​ **What about Nabu Casa?** My goal with Homeway is not to undermine Nabu Casa or Home Assitant. I have talked with the Home Assistant founder and told him to let me know if there's any impact on their services, and we will figure out a solution. In the most extreme case, I will just shut down Homeway. I don't think Homeway poses a threat to Nabu Casa, since they are deeply integrated into all versions of Home Assistant. My goal with Homeway is to provide another security choice for remote access, everyone can pick the solution that's best for them. ​ **What about other remote access solutions?** There are a ton of great ways to get remote access to Home Assistant! CloudFlare tunnels, TailScale, VPNs, and more. If you're the kind of user who can set up that system and use it securely, they are a great option for you. My goal with Homeway is to provide secure remote access for everyone else. That includes users who can't set up another remote access solution or who don't want to fuss with keeping it maintained. ​ **Thank You 🥰** I'm excited to get more users into Homeway and get feedback! I'm more than happy to answer any questions; fire away! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- quinbd · 2023-12-20 22:47 Sorry for the double post! The other post got down by Reddit because my /u/homeway-dev account was only a day old. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- quinbd · 2023-12-20 22:52 Sorry for the double post! I think the other post was deleted because the Reddit account I made for Homeway was only a day old. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HoratioWobble · 2023-12-20 23:11 I'm struggling to see how this fits the sub? Just because it works with a self hosted solution, doesn't mean it's relevant to this sub - it's not self hosted, you're hosting it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EndlessHiway · 2023-12-20 23:12 Another spam post for a closed source project, that isn't self hosted. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EndlessHiway · 2023-12-20 23:13 It doesn't that is why the mods locked and deleted their last post. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- quinbd · 2023-12-20 23:20 That's fair. The reason I posted here on Wednesday is that the subreddit rules say things related to self-hosting can be discussed on Wednesdays. Home Assistant is a super popular self-hosted server and can act like a self-hosting hub with all of its docker add-ons. My goal with Homeway is to give the Home Assitant community secure and private remote access that's accessible. A lot of users have the technical ability and time to set up a remote solution, and that will work great for them. But I made Homeway for everyone else - who might try to set up remote access but fail to secure it properly and then would be exposed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- quinbd · 2023-12-20 23:23 The post on Monday was deleted due to the Wednesday rule. I messaged the mod team and checked with them; they confirmed that the content would be fine for a "Wednesday" post. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EndlessHiway · 2023-12-20 23:52 Why did they delete it again then? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- quinbd · 2023-12-20 23:53 I’m not sure, I messaged them, but haven’t heard back.