MCP AI Bridge
Talk to your Homey Pro with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or any other AI assistant. In plain language, in your own language.
“Turn off the lights downstairs.” “Is the back door still open?” “What used the most power this week?” “Build me a flow that turns on the porch light at sunset.” MCP AI Bridge runs on your Homey itself and lets any AI assistant read and operate your whole home: 190 actions over devices, flows, energy, dashboards and more. Talk to it from your computer, from Claude or ChatGPT on your phone, from Telegram or WhatsApp, or let your flows ask a model a question. You decide per assistant what it may do. No extra cloud, no subscription.
Version 5.0 is in test right now. This post describes 5.0. Until Athom approves it, the App Store installs 4.20.3; take the test version below to get everything here.
What you need: a Homey Pro from 2023 or newer (or Homey Pro mini, or Self-Hosted Server), an AI assistant you already use, and five minutes. The app itself is free.
Links
App Store: MCP AI Bridge | Homey- Test version (5.0): https://homey.app/a/community.mcp-ai-bridge/test/
Every version since 1.0: [APP][Pro] MCP AI Bridge: talk to your Homey with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Cursor, Mistral, Ollama, LM Studio, n8n, Home Assistant or any AI, also from Telegram and WhatsApp - #3 by weide43- Questions, ideas, bug reports: right here in this topic
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In this post
- What it is, and why this one
- New in 5.0
- How to set up (five minutes on your own network, plus the optional extras)
- Connect your assistant (every client, with the config)
- Talk to your house from your phone (Ask a model, Telegram, WhatsApp, widget, Siri)
- Flow cards: your flows and the AI working together
- A voice for your speakers
- Dashboards
- Security: you stay in control
- Remote access, tokens and the settings page
- Works with, requirements, languages
- FAQ
- Thanks
- Changelog
What it is
Your Homey already runs your home. With this app you can just talk to it.
MCP AI Bridge runs a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server on your Homey Pro. MCP is the open standard that Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Microsoft build their assistants around, so one Homey address works in Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Cursor, n8n, Home Assistant and every other MCP client. The assistant sees the real state of your home and changes it for you. You stop digging through menus and say what you want.
Why this one
Every assistant, not one. The open standard means no lock-in. Switch assistants whenever you like; your Homey stays the same.
The whole Homey, not just switches. Devices, zones, basic and Advanced Flows, moods, Logic, alarms, energy with prices and the solar forecast, Insights, notifications, apps, Homey’s own dashboards, users and presence, system. 190 actions.
Local first. The assistant connects to your Homey on your own network. Nothing extra in between, and the app sends nothing to me: no statistics, no account.
Locked down by choice. Four permission levels per API key, a tool selection per key, an access switch for the whole bridge, guardrails, a blocklist, confirmation for irreversible actions, and a log of everything.
See it before it happens, and take it back. Ask for a preview and you get what would change. A set of changes is applied as one, and the last change an assistant made can be undone.
Your own AI commands. Build a tool for the assistant in the flow editor and answer it with live values.
From anywhere. From Claude or ChatGPT on your phone, from Telegram or WhatsApp, from a Siri shortcut, or from the widget on your Homey dashboard.
New in 5.0
- Talk to your house from your phone. A model that may operate the house under a key you choose: from the widget, a flow card, a webhook for Siri or Tasker, Telegram or WhatsApp.
Ask a model works with Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Mistral, and Ollama or LM Studio on your own network, and can search the web.
A home profile. What your devices are really called, their quirks and the house rules, for every assistant at once.
Ask a person. The AI asks someone in the household a question on their phone and waits for the answer. Irreversible actions can be confirmed there too.
Panels in the chat. In Claude, ChatGPT and other clients that show MCP Apps: the switches of a room, an energy chart with prices, a flow drawn as it is, your cameras, a flow before it is made, and an approval card for a set of changes.
Skills. Ready ways of working for Advanced Flows, energy, dashboards, troubleshooting, the Zigbee network and safe changes. Add your own.
About half the tokens. Switch a key to lean and every conversation costs less. The Diagnostics tab shows where the tokens go.- Energy knows the solar forecast, export prices and the cheapest hours.
A PIN per dashboard.- Remote access without a computer running day and night. The app keeps a free DuckDNS name (or your own Cloudflare domain) on your house and fetches its own Let’s Encrypt certificate. One port forward is all that is left.
More clients in the wizard: LM Studio, n8n, Home Assistant and the Gemini app.
A tidier settings page: 13 tabs, with Chat for Telegram and WhatsApp, and every message in your own language.
How to set up
The basics: five minutes, on your own network
1. Install the app. From the App Store link above, on a Homey Pro from 2023 or newer.
2. Open the settings. In the Homey app: More, Apps, MCP AI Bridge, Configure app. The Status tab shows the bridge running, its address (http://<homey-ip>:52199/mcp) and an API key the app made for you. That key is shown once, so copy it somewhere safe.
3. Pick your assistant. On the Connection tab, choose your client. The wizard writes the config with your Homey’s address and your key already filled in. Copy it.
4. Paste it into your assistant. For Claude Desktop that is Settings, Developer, Edit Config; for Claude Code one terminal command; the details for every client are in the next section. Restart the assistant.
5. Say something. “Which lights are on?” works as a first test. Then try “give me an overview of my house”.
That is all you need for the core. Everything below is optional.
Optional: let it build flows and dashboards
Writing flows and Homey’s own dashboards need a Personal Access Token, because the app’s own API token is not allowed to do that. Make one at my.homey.app, Settings, API keys:
- tick homey.flow for creating, editing and starting flows;
- Homey’s dashboards need the Dashboard scope, which is not offered as a checkbox. Only a token made with the top entry Homey (full access) carries it. Take it if you want your assistant to build dashboards, leave it if not.
Paste the token on the Connection tab. The Status tab shows what it can do and which scope is still missing.
Optional: give each assistant its own key
On Security, make a key per assistant with the level it needs (see the table further down). Press Tools on a key to choose exactly which tools it sees, or switch it to compact (two tools that reach all 190, for Gemini, Mistral and local models) or lean (short descriptions and compact answers, about half the tokens).
Optional: Claude or ChatGPT on your phone, from anywhere
Cloud assistants run on the internet, so they need your Homey on a public HTTPS address. The Remote tab, Easy setup, does it in four steps:
- A name for your house. Make a free name at duckdns.org (sign in, pick a name, copy the token), or use your own domain in Cloudflare with an API token for Zone, DNS, Edit. Paste it in and save.
- A certificate. Tick that you agree to Let’s Encrypt’s terms. The app fetches the certificate itself and renews it in time.
- Your router. Forward TCP port 443 to your Homey on port 52200. Give your Homey a fixed address in the router.
- Check. Nine checks tell you what is still missing. When all are green, the tab shows the address for your assistant’s connector.
Then add a custom connector in Claude (web or app) or ChatGPT (developer mode) with that address. You get a consent page where you pick the permission for that connection and enter your API key.
Optional: talk to your house from Telegram or WhatsApp
First, on Ask a model: choose a provider, paste your own API key, and switch on Let the model act with the key it acts as (a key with Control only is usually enough). Then open the Chat tab, which shows a checklist of what is ready.
Telegram (the easy one, nothing to open to the internet):
- In Telegram, search for @BotFather (blue tick) and tap Start.
- Send
/newbot, give it a name and a username ending inbot. - Copy the token BotFather sends and paste it on the Chat tab. Tick Telegram on and save. It says “Running as @yourbot”.
- Open your bot from BotFather’s message and tap Start. It tells you your chat is not approved yet.
- Back on the Chat tab, click Approve next to your chat. Ask “which lights are on?”.
/newstarts a fresh conversation.
WhatsApp takes more steps and needs remote access running, because Meta delivers the messages to your public address. You make a free app at developers.facebook.com with the WhatsApp product, copy the Phone number ID, make a token that does not expire under Business settings, System users, and copy the app secret. Paste those on the Chat tab, then give Meta the webhook address and verify token the tab shows. The tab walks you through all eight steps.
Only chats and numbers you approve get an answer.
Optional: a few more
- Home & knowledge tab: fill in the home profile (what you call things, quirks, house rules). Every assistant gets it when it connects.
- Chat tab, Ask on the phone: choose who may be asked a question by the AI, and whose phone confirms irreversible actions.
- AI voice tab: a provider and voice for spoken messages on your speakers.
- Dashboard tab: build a dashboard in one click and give it a PIN.
Connect your assistant
The wizard on the Connection tab writes all of these for you, with your address and key filled in. Here is what each one looks like, so you know what you are in for. Replace <homey-ip> with your Homey’s address.
Claude Desktop
claude_desktop_config.json, via Settings, Developer, Edit Config. The wizard opens on mcp-remote, which needs Node.js on your computer, because older builds reject a native HTTP entry:
{
"mcpServers": {
"homey": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "http://<homey-ip>:52199/mcp", "--allow-http"]
}
}
}
Newer builds take the native form (second button on that tab):
{
"mcpServers": {
"homey": { "type": "http", "url": "http://<homey-ip>:52199/mcp" }
}
}
Claude Code
claude mcp add homey --transport http "http://<homey-ip>:52199/mcp"
Cursor and Windsurf
The same mcpServers block in mcp.json, then restart the editor.
GitHub Copilot (VS Code agent mode)
In .vscode/mcp.json. Note servers, not mcpServers:
{
"servers": {
"homey": { "type": "http", "url": "http://<homey-ip>:52199/mcp" }
}
}
Gemini on a computer
antigravity-cli (which replaced gemini-cli) wants "serverUrl" in ~/.gemini/antigravity-cli/mcp_config.json; the older Gemini CLI wants "httpUrl" in ~/.gemini/settings.json. The wizard writes both. Use a key in compact mode: Gemini takes at most 128 tools.
Mistral Vibe
vibe mcp add homey --url "http://<homey-ip>:52199/mcp" --transport streamable-http
Or in .vibe/config.toml (per project) or ~/.vibe/config.toml:
[[mcp_servers]]
name = "homey"
transport = "streamable-http"
url = "http://<homey-ip>:52199/mcp"
LM Studio, Open WebUI, Ollama
LM Studio (0.3.17 or newer): the mcpServers block with "url", in Program, Install, Edit mcp.json.
Open WebUI (0.6.31 or newer): Admin Panel, Settings, External Tools, add a server: type MCP (Streamable HTTP), URL http://<homey-ip>:52199/mcp, Bearer auth with your key. Set Function Calling to Native in the model’s Advanced Params.
Local models rarely cope with 190 tools: give them a key in compact mode.
n8n
An AI Agent with the MCP Client Tool node: Endpoint your /mcp address, Server Transport HTTP Streamable, Authentication Bearer Auth with your API key. Choose only the tools the agent needs.
Home Assistant
Settings, Devices & services, Add integration, Model Context Protocol. Its client takes an address and no header, so the key goes in the address: http://<homey-ip>:52199/mcp?key=YOUR_API_KEY. That only works on your own network. Give it its own key with Control only, and switch on compact mode or pick the tools.
Claude web or app, ChatGPT, the Gemini app (cloud)
These run on the internet and need your public HTTPS address from the Remote tab (see How to set up). Then:
- Claude web or app: custom connector, on every plan (Free allows one, which is all you need).
- ChatGPT: Plus and Pro, with developer mode on (Settings, Apps & Connectors, Advanced). ChatGPT asks you to confirm each write action.
- Gemini app: through Spark (Settings & help, Connected Apps, Custom apps for Spark). For now only with a personal Google account in the US, in English.
With an API key: how each form carries it
The wizard fills it in for you; these are the shapes:
native HTTP entry "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
mcp-remote (npx) "--header", "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
claude mcp add --header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
vibe mcp add --header "Authorization=Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
Vibe config.toml headers = { "Authorization" = "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
Scripting: REST and OpenAPI
Every tool is also a plain REST call at POST /tools/{name}, with a full OpenAPI 3.1 spec at GET /openapi.json. That drops straight into Make, Node-RED or your own code.
Just ask
Lights and climate: “Turn off all the lights downstairs.” “Dim the living room to 30 percent.” “Set the bedroom to 19 degrees tonight.”
Check on things: “Is the garage door still open?” “Which devices have a low battery?” “Anything offline right now?”
Energy: “What used the most power this week?” “When is the cheapest time to run the dishwasher today?” “How much sun do we get tomorrow?”
Automations: “Make a flow that turns on the porch light at sunset.” “When the doorbell rings after dark, turn on the hall light for five minutes.” It builds the Advanced Flow with the cards in place, and shows it to you first in clients with panels.
Housekeeping: “Did anything fail in the last hour?” “Are any of my flows broken?” “Which apps are used in no flow at all?”
The Commands tab has about eighty more, tap to copy.
Talk to your house from your phone
Ask a model with tools. A model of your choice (your own key at Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini or Mistral, or Ollama or LM Studio at home) may operate the house as the API key you choose, with that key’s permission and tool selection, and through the same checks as Claude or ChatGPT: guardrails, access mode, limits and the audit log. You reach it from:
- Telegram and WhatsApp, with your own bot or number;
- the widget on your Homey dashboard;
a flow card;
a webhook for a Siri shortcut, Tasker or anything that can send a web request.
What the model reads (names, who is home, device states) goes to the provider you chose; with Telegram or WhatsApp it also passes through their servers. A daily limit and your own prices per million tokens keep the bill in sight, and the last twenty questions with their cost are listed.
Ask a person. The AI can ask someone in the household on their phone, with Homey’s own notifications: a question to type an answer to, or yes or no. “How warm should the oven be?” “May the heating go off?” An irreversible action can be confirmed on a phone you choose, naming the device instead of an id.
Flow cards: your flows and the AI working together
Ask a model, from any flow
- Ask a model a question. The answer comes back as a tag. You choose what goes along: nothing, a room, a device, recent events or the whole home.
- Let the model do something. The same with tools, under the key you chose.
- Ask a model about a camera picture. The picture goes along with the question.
- A model answers yes (condition). Branch on a yes or no question. Anything else stops the flow with the reason, instead of guessing.
Your own AI commands
- An AI agent calls a custom tool (trigger) and Return a response to the AI agent (action). The assistant calls your tool, your flow runs and answers with live values. Works in basic and Advanced Flows; give it a description and up to five typed arguments.
Watch what happens
- The AI controls a device, An AI tool call fails, A flow becomes broken, A security event occurs, A scheduled bridge job fails, An AI agent disconnects, and conditions for There is a broken flow, An AI agent is connected, The security event is, Model spend today is below.
Steer the bridge
- Limit the bridge to a mode (everyone asleep, read only) and Return the bridge to its normal access mode. A flow can lower access, never raise it.
- Remember a value for the AI and the condition A remembered value is.
Example: a morning summary. Every day at seven, Ask a model a question with the whole home: “what stands out this morning, in two sentences”, then send the Answer tag as a notification.
A voice for your speakers
- Say a text with an AI voice on a speaker, a room, all speakers or wherever somebody is, with voice, volume, speed and a chime first.
- Ask a model and say the answer, Describe a camera picture out loud (who is at the door, never who it is), and Say a briefing (weather, the cheapest hour, lights on, open doors, who is home).
- Your own key at OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure (its free tier covers a normal house), or Piper on a computer at home. Sonos, Chromecast and any speaker that plays an audio address. Quiet hours, a queue, and every speaker goes back to its own volume.
Dashboards
- The app’s own dashboard at
http://<homey-ip>:52199/dashboard, built in one click, for a tablet on the wall. Live device states, camera streams (FLV and MJPEG), and a PIN per dashboard: control (anybody may look, switching asks for the PIN) or view. - Homey’s own dashboards, built by your assistant, with Homey’s widgets from the catalogue.
- A widget for your Homey dashboard with the bridge status and a field to ask the model.
Security: you stay in control
Four permission levels, per key.
| Level | May do | May not |
|---|---|---|
| Read only | See everything | Change anything |
| Control only | Switch and set devices, start a flow, activate a mood, set a variable, send a notification | Rename, move, change settings, create, overwrite or delete |
| Control and change | All of that, plus editing flows, dashboards, moods and settings | Delete devices, uninstall apps, reboot, wipe data |
| Full | Everything |
Control only is the one to give a voice assistant: it operates the house and leaves the way it is set up alone.
And the rest:
Access mode for the whole bridge: full, control and change, control only, read only or off, in one click.
The tool list follows the key. An assistant only sees the tools it may use, so it does not waste turns on refusals.
Tools per key, with a search box and a running count, and a warning past the 100 several clients refuse.
Guardrails block a tool or capability, optionally in a time window. 
A blocklist for risky tools, even for a full key.
Confirmation for irreversible actions, in the client or on a phone.
IP whitelist and rate limits, tighter for destructive actions.
Security log with source IPs, a connections view, and an audit log of every action. Argument values are never logged.
Zigbee and Z-Wave network keys and your own flow keys are never shown to an assistant.- The dashboard never leaves your network.
A new install makes its own API key, so the bridge is never open to everything that can reach your Homey.
Remote access, tokens and the settings page
Remote access is off until you turn it on, and refuses to start without an API key. Remote clients sign in with OAuth 2.1: you pick the permission per connection on a consent page, a global ceiling caps them all, and connectors can be revoked. Easy setup (see How to set up) keeps the name and certificate current. Manual routes for an existing proxy are still there.
Saving tokens. A lean key gets short tool descriptions (the long explanation lives in the skills) and compact answers: no empty fields, rounded numbers, lists as tables. On a real house: the tool list from 45,000 to 26,000 tokens, a set of answers from 117,000 to 54,000. Compact mode shows two tools that reach all 190.
Skills are ready ways of working an assistant reads before a bigger job: Advanced Flows, dashboards, energy, troubleshooting, the Zigbee network, safe changes and HomeyScript. Write your own on the Home & knowledge tab.
The settings page, 13 tabs, each saying what it is for: Status, Connection, Security, Remote, Ask a model, Chat, AI voice, Dashboard, Home & knowledge (memory, home profile, skills), Automation (schedules, events, webhooks), Diagnostics (tool calls, broken flows, tokens, change history, bug report), Commands and About. Everything in your own language.
Works with
Claude (Desktop, Code, web, mobile), ChatGPT, Google Gemini (CLI and app), GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf, Mistral Vibe, Open WebUI, LM Studio, Ollama, n8n, Home Assistant, and any other MCP client.
Requirements: a Homey Pro (2023), Homey Pro (2026), Homey Pro mini or Homey Self-Hosted Server, with firmware 12.1.0 or newer. A Homey Pro (Early 2019) or older cannot run it.
Languages: English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. The settings page follows your phone, the flow cards and widget follow your Homey. Spot a clumsy sentence in your language? Tell me here.
Get it
- Install from the App Store: MCP AI Bridge | Homey
- Or try 5.0 now: MCP AI Bridge | Homey
Open the settings and follow How to set up above.
Questions, ideas and bug reports are very welcome here. A bug report from the Diagnostics tab carries everything needed to help, and never a key. If the app makes your home a little easier, a reply or a 
helps other people find it. 
FAQ
Does it work on a Homey Bridge, Homey Cloud or a Homey Pro (Early 2019)?
No. It runs on the Homey itself and needs the local Homey API of a Homey Pro from 2023 or newer, a Homey Pro mini or a Self-Hosted Server.
What does it cost?
The app is free, without an account or subscription. Claude Desktop works on the free plan; ChatGPT needs Plus or Pro for custom connectors. Ask a model, the AI voice and Telegram or WhatsApp chat use your own API key at the provider you choose, and you pay that provider for what you use. A daily limit keeps that in hand.
Where does my data go?
Only to the assistant you connect, and for Ask a model to the provider you chose. The app sends nothing to me: no statistics, no crash reports. Keys and tokens stay on your Homey.
Gemini, Mistral or my local model sees no tools, or answers nothing.
Those take at most 100 to 128 tools. Switch that key to compact mode on the Security tab: the assistant then sees two tools that still reach all 190.
Do I need a Personal Access Token?
Only to let the assistant create or edit flows, or build Homey’s own dashboards. Everything else works without one.
Do I have to open a port?
Not on your own network. Only for cloud assistants (Claude web or app, ChatGPT) and WhatsApp: one port forward, set up on the Remote tab. Remote access refuses to start without an API key, and every remote connection signs in on a consent page.
Is there an official Homey MCP server too?
Athom has its own MCP server in the cloud. This app is a separate one that runs on your Homey; you can use either, or both.
Something does not work.
Make a bug report at the bottom of the Diagnostics tab and paste it in this topic. It carries everything needed to help, and never a key.
Thanks
5.0 is full of ideas from this topic. Thanks to @Mariomark1541 for the reports on Ask a model and the AI voice and the hard questions about limits, @Paul_Pandre and @4x4_Pete for the connection and tool selection reports, @J_Reeves for showing it works in ChatGPT on Plus, Teddy for the long Open WebUI and Gemini sessions, Dominik for the Homey Pro (2019) report, and Andre Kamman for asking for Mistral Vibe. Keep them coming.
Changelog
v5.0.0 Talk to your house from your phone: a model that may operate
it, from Telegram, WhatsApp, the widget, a flow or Siri.
Gemini and local models, web search, a home profile, ask a
person mid-flow, panels in the chat, skills, solar forecast
and cheapest hours, dashboard PIN, remote access with its own
certificate, lean keys that halve the tokens, 13 tidier tabs.
v4.21.1 The store page now shows the description in your own
language. The translated texts never made it into the upload.
v4.21.0 The app speaks Norwegian, Swedish, German, Danish, Spanish,
French and Italian too: settings page, flow cards, widget
and store text. A new App Store image, without text.
Every version since 1.0, in full: [APP][Pro] MCP AI Bridge: talk to your Homey with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Cursor, Mistral, Ollama, LM Studio, n8n, Home Assistant or any AI, also from Telegram and WhatsApp - #3 by weide43
