Simple Remote Access to Home Assistant Without Paying for Home Assistant Cloud or Other Costly Solutions

Home Assistant is a great solution for smart home automation, but one of the biggest challenges is secure remote access. Many users rely on Home Assistant Cloud by Nabu Casa or other methods that can be expensive or complicated to set up.

Issues with Common Remote Access Methods

• Home Assistant Cloud (Nabu Casa) – a paid service for remote access.
• Cloudflare Tunnels – free for connecting a limited number of homes under one domain. Some advanced features may require a paid plan.
• Tailscale VPN – requires logging into the VPN each time you connect, which is not user-friendly.
• NAT and port forwarding – can pose security risks and is not always supported by internet providers (requires a public IP, which is often a paid service).

Open-Source Proxy for Home Assistant

If you want to access your smart home without relying on a public IP address while keeping costs low, regardless of the number of connected homes within an access hub, you can use open-source proxies such as:

• FRP (Fast Reverse Proxy) – a powerful solution for traffic forwarding.
• Bore – an ultra-simple TCP tunneling solution.

In both cases, you only need to open ports on the public-facing server (hub accessible through a domain), not on your home network router. This works similarly to Cloudflare Tunnels – your Home Assistant device initiates and maintains an outbound connection to the public server, which then handles incoming requests and routes them through the established tunnel. This approach is also more secure than traditional port forwarding because:

• Your home IP address remains private
• No inbound ports are exposed on your home network
• The tunnel connection is encrypted
• Authentication happens at the public server before traffic reaches your home network

How Does Proxy Access Work?

1. Set up your own or use a public proxy server.
2. Connect Home Assistant through a secure tunnel to the proxy server.
3. Access Home Assistant from anywhere using the proxy server's domain.

Benefits of Proxy Access

• Low Cost – no need for Home Assistant Cloud or paid VPN services.
• Security – encrypted connection with no open ports.
• Flexibility – easily add multiple Home Assistant instances.

Want to Learn More?

Contact us, and we’ll be happy to help you set up this method! :)