For those that followed the original iterations of some of the pages on this site, I fell into Home Assistant because I needed to have a customised SkyQ remote control for a user with advancing dementia. This caused two small issues, they had never used a smartphone, tablet or computer before – and I was living over an hours drive away.
So while I had set up a personalised remote control, I also needed to get into the system remotely when I was aware of a problem. So I started to investigate what was the most sensible, simple and cost effective way to access this from home. Although Home Assistant is paired with Nabu Casa offering both paid annual and monthly subscriptions, I had to justify whether for this single use case that the cost was necessary. In this case I did not think – although I am for my own home – that £65 for this single use case was justified.
What I did find is that TailScale was what I considered the easiest and quickest solution for me to implement, with not too much knowledge needed and for personal accounts it is free. Essentially I needed to do is install TailScale on your Home Assistant add the TailScale app to the device you want to use to access it, and then create a TailScale account and add the two app installs to it.
Setting Up a TailScale Account
It is almost essential to get your TailScale account set up first, because the workflow when you set up your the apps for your devices will (with one exception) allow you to log straight on and connect to your VPN network.
My recommendation is to simply go to TailScale’s own knowledgebase article on how to get started and follow the steps to create a tailnet (aka an account) to get started. Personally? I simply used the GoogleMail account that I created many, many years ago when I first got onto the Android ecosystem because it just worked with their single sign-on. So I can not vouch for their on page assurance that if you hold your own domain (I have a few of those too) that you can simply move between their enterprise and personal accounts.
What do I have on my tailnet at the moment? On top of the Home Assistant I am maintaining remotely, I also have my own Home Assistant and a second Raspberry Pi I have at home for other connected home and automation tasks… JellyFin, for example.
The TailScale Add-on
For this (nearly) zero-config access, I am using the Home Assistant community’s Tailscale add-on. It is easily accessible using your add-on menu if you have Home Assistant installed, or you can see the same documentation on GitHub if you have not yet got a Home Assistant installed.
I recommend though, setting all this up while you still have the Home Assistant with you; whether this is at your own home before you deploy or while you are in the place you are going to install it. It is just that much simpler. This is because there is a small blip that requires a one-time bit of technical genius. Certainly when I have set up Tailscale on the two Home Assistants that I deployed, I had an issue where Tailscale could not connect successfully with the tailnet.
So if your login fails too – this is the one-time workaround (unless of course you have some catastrophic failure in the future and have to start from scratch…. then it needs doing a second time)
- Go to your Tailscale add-on at Settings > Add-ons > Tailscale and go to the Log screen at the top of the window.
- Or simply load the URL [Home Assistant IP]:8123/hassio/addon/a0d7b954_tailscale/logs
- Look through the logs for a line that starts AuthURL is https://login.tailscale.com/[your unique login link]
- Copy the URL and paste into a new browser tab on your Chrome / Edge / Other
This will then go through the same log-in process to connect your Home Assistant to your tailnet. After that, we need to make sure it does not happen again by stopping the connection expiring:
- Go to your Tailscale account dashboard
- Find the Home Assistant machine in the list
- Click the three dots to open the menu
- Select “Disable Key Expiry”
It is not the ideal solution if you have sensitive information on your Home Assistant. I am expecting that if you are reading this though, you are probably only going to be starting off Home Assistant for very simple tasks like the Sky Q remote control or experimenting with a chore list for adults.
The Remote Access
Now that we have set up Tailscale on the Home Assistant, we also need to do the same for whatever devices you are planning to use to access it remotely.
Thankfully using Windows computers, Android apps, iPad apps. All much easier. Go to their dedicated download page. Each app directly lets you see what devices in your tailnet are active and available to connect, each device is assigned a unique IP address by Tailscale which never changes, so as long as your Tailscale app is connected to the network you can select the device to copy it’s IP (or remember it) and then paste it into your web browser.
You do also have to remember to add the port of the Home Assistant software (:8123) just like you do if you are accessing it remotely.
If all works, then you will come to your log-in screen for Home Assistant, or if you have already logged in once your dashboards.
Now… My pedanticism – and a caution
This is a bug-bear of mine if you are using the Android app for Tailscale. This is also a bug-bear of many on Tailscale’s feature request forum. The Android app by default assumes that everything is going to go through the Tailscale app unless you blacklist it… and I mean everything.
So I went through the process of blocking access to well over 100 apps and sub-apps, and processes, because I use (or for the next few days use) Tailscale to access my own Home Assistant and so it is permanently enabled. If you are leaving permanently on, then I would suggesting doing the same on the Android device through these menus:
As you can see, it’s wants to have access to eVeRyThInG.
If you are only using Tailscale to access your loved ones Sky Q remote control, then simply turn it on and off when you need access. I doubt you are going to be spending 18 hours a day logging in and changing the channels every hour… and if you are then you might want an automation for that!
Nabu Casa
I have transitioned my own Home Assistant at home from Tailscale to Nabu Casa‘s Home Assistant Cloud paid for VPN connection.
Why? Well it will make it easier for my family to access remotely as we expand the home Home Assistant, I also do not want to go in and blacklist every single app in all their devices, and then go in and blacklist each time they install a new game! The £65 a year also goes to support the Nabu Casa team who pour time and resources specifically into the development of Home Assistant, cloud based remote back-ups of your Home Assistant (yes…. I have backups save me a few times already) and more.
To set it up is actually incredibly simple. If you are already sat looking at your Home Assistant dashboard then simply go into your settings menu and “Home Assistant Cloud” and follow the instructions to start the free trial.
Quite literally (because I know some places trick you with this) you set up your account, select to start the free trial and it gives you the unique VPN address to connect to your Home Assistant remotely. They do not say “No Payment Needed” and then ask for your credit card details hoping that your forget to cancel, you literally do not need to add a card until you are ready to commit.
Now – I will say that I do not strictly think that this is as strong as using a VPN like Tailscale. With Nebu Casa, knowing the URL to reach your Home Assistant is all you need whereas Tailscale you need to have their app and be logged in (almost like 2FA) however at the same time my family only have non-local Home Assistant accounts on their mobile phones rather than on every tablet and computer they use.
Also – as you can may note, there are no affiliate links, I have no connection or incentive to recommend Nabu Casa.
1 thought on “Remote into your Home Assistant”