Home Assistant

It's possible to integrate the Devices in Home Assistant. The integration is based on MQTT, Autodiscovery is used.

Configuration

We need to add following Environment-Variables to the Localkit-Container:

HOMEASSISTANT_PORT=HOST_PORT  
HOMEASSISTANT_HOST=HOST_IP
HOMEASSISTANT_CLIENT_ID=localkit

Replace IP and Port with your MQTT-Server.

If your MQTT-Broker requires authentication, add following variables too:

HOMEASSISTANT_AUTH_USERNAME=USERNAME
HOMEASSISTANT_AUTH_PASSWORD=PASSWORD

Two users required

When using MQTT authorization, two separate users are needed — one for subscribing (used by Localkit to receive messages) and one for publishing (used by Home Assistant to send commands). Using a single user for both may cause permission errors.

Enable

If your Devices are not connected to Home Assistant, ensure the localkit-homeassistant service is enabled and running:

Entity Types

Localkit publishes devices via MQTT autodiscovery using a broad set of Home Assistant entity types — switches, sensors, binary sensors, buttons, numbers, selects, images, and event entities, among others. Each device's documentation lists the exact entities it exposes.

All settable entities (switches, numbers, selects) write their values straight back to the device, so changes made in Home Assistant take effect immediately.

Activity Events

Every device activity — feeding, drinking, pet detection, cleaning cycles, errors — is published to Home Assistant as an Event entity (named Activity). Each device gets one event entity that fires for the following event types:

Event type	Meaning
eat_start / eat_over	A pet started / finished eating at a feeder
drink_start / drink_over	A pet started / finished drinking at a fountain
detect	A pet was detected by a camera
in_use_start / in_use_over	A pet entered / left a litter box
cleaning	A litter box cleaning cycle started
maintenance	A maintenance cycle ran
error_start / error_over	A device error started / cleared

Use an event entity as an automation trigger and branch on the event_type attribute:

automation:
  - alias: "Cat ate"
    trigger:
      - trigger: state
        entity_id: event.cat_feeder_activity
    condition:
      - condition: template
        value_template: "{{ trigger.to_state.attributes.event_type == 'eat_over' }}"
    action:
      - action: notify.mobile_app_phone
        data:
          message: "The cat has finished eating."

TIP

Activities are also recorded in Localkit's Activity Log, with pet names resolved via pet recognition and camera recordings attached.

Camera Streams

Localkit camera streams can be viewed in a Home Assistant dashboard and exposed as a virtual Media Player for audio or TTS playback on devices that support camera two-way audio.

This setup uses the WebRTC integration and add-on, which provide the Home Assistant WebRTC camera card, webrtc media player platform, and go2rtc stream configuration.

Requirements

• WebRTC integration and add-on
• A Localkit device with an RTSP stream and two-way audio support

Configure go2rtc

Add the device stream to go2rtc.yaml in your Home Assistant configuration folder.

Example:

streams:
  cat_feeder:
    - rtsp://10.0.0.190:8554/cam?backchannel=1
    - ffmpeg:cat_feeder#audio=opus

Replace 10.0.0.190 with the IP address of your Localkit device.

View the Stream

Use the WebRTC camera card to view the stream in a Home Assistant dashboard.

Example:

- type: custom:webrtc-camera
  streams:
    - url: cat_feeder
      name: Watch
      mode: webrtc
      media: video,audio,microphone
  
  # Optional: Use visibility to hide when the camera is off 
  visibility:
    - condition: state
      entity: switch.cat_feeder_camera_switch
      state: 'on'

Create a Media Player

The WebRTC integration can also expose the stream as a virtual media player.

Speaker quality

The built-in speakers are low quality. They work okay for TTS announcements, but are not recommended for music playback.

Add a virtual media player to your Home Assistant configuration.yaml.

Example:

media_player:
  - platform: webrtc   # Required
    name: Cat Feeder   # Any name you chose
    stream: cat_feeder # Must match the stream name from `go2rtc.yaml`
    audio: pcma        # Highest quality that YumShare Dual Supports

After changing configuration.yaml or go2rtc.yaml, restart Home Assistant or reload the affected configuration.

Source: WebRTC streaming to cameras and virtual media players