What is Homer
Homer shows your home as a plan and lets you control it right from the plan. Tap a light and it switches. Tap a room and a card opens with all its lights, sensors and outlets. The plan can open in 3D, and you can walk through the home in first person.
Home Assistant is the source of states and the receiver of commands. Homer doesn't replace it, it works on top: everything your Home Assistant can do shows up on the plan.
What it's made of
| Part | Where it lives | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| App | phone, tablet, TV, Meta Quest headset | Plan, lights, sensors, walk, settings. One build for all devices |
| Web version | browser | Same as the app, plus easy home editing with a mouse. See Web version |
| Homer server | home server, next to Home Assistant | Stores the home and its files, decides who can do what, keeps the log, raises alarms. See Homes and the Homer server |
| Home Assistant | home server | Devices, integrations, automations. Homer automations run in it |
| Zigbee2MQTT and Mosquitto | home server, Zigbee USB stick | Zigbee lights, sensors and buttons without a cloud |
| go2rtc | home server | Live video from cameras |
| Homer speaker | Windows computer, backup on the home server | Voice assistant. See Speaker and brains |
Everything on the server side comes up as one Docker Compose project — see Installation.
What it can do
Plan and walk
The home is drawn as a plan in meters: rooms, walls, doors, windows, floors. Lights that are on tint the room, sensors are shown where they stand. The same home opens in isometric, in 3D and as a first-person walk, including in a headset. Furniture comes from a catalog or as your own .glb file.
More — Plan and walk.
Devices
- Zigbee — add, rename, check the connection.
- Matter — by pairing code.
- Tuya — outlets from the Smart Life cloud.
- Cameras — Yandex and Xiaomi: live video, snapshots, events.
- Energy — how much the home uses now and over a period, tariff.
Lights
Light groups with a shared slider that turns lights off one by one at the bottom end. Color temperature and color for the whole group. Presets are snapshots of the lights that you later turn on with one tap.
Automations
“When it gets dark — turn on the hallway light” is drawn with cards and links. Home Assistant runs the automation, so it works even when the tablet is off.
More — Automations.
Safety
A leak, smoke or gas raises an alarm on all devices, in Telegram and on speakers, even when the app is closed. The home has its own chat that can be linked to a Telegram group.
More — Alarms and Home chat and Telegram.
Voice
The Homer speaker hears “Homer, turn on the bedroom light”, does simple things itself and hands complex ones to the senior Claude model.
More — Speaker and brains.
Access and support
The owner gives out access by QR code: a guest can only look, family can control the lights, an editor can edit the plan. A support technician can be let into the home remotely for a few hours.
More — Access and levels and Updates and support.
Where to start
- Get an install link from someone who already runs Homer, bring up the home stack and install the app.
- Become the home owner and invite the other devices.
- Place devices on the plan: Settings → Devices → Devices on the plan.