Homebridge 2.0 is here, and it speaks Matter
theverge.com
theverge.com
What are the biggest benefits of Homebridge?
I don't have any scenes except lights, which are all HomeKit compatible. Is the benefit that you can buy non-HomeKit accessories (for less money) and talk to them through Siri like they were HomeKit compatible?
I do have some older Wemo switches/plugs that are no longer supported by Wemo, so if I could get control of those, that would be helpful. For now, they're just fixed to the timer schedule I set before Belkin sunsetted Wemo.
The key difference between what you're doing and what Homebridge enables is to make the relevant app the "Home" app. If all of my IoT devices are controllable (and can be automated to some degree) through a single pane of glass that I can share with my wife, that's a big improvement over "Ok, to get access to our cameras, you need to go install these three apps and log in to all of them and accept my sharing invite, etc, etc".
Yeah, you can talk to Siri to control the devices sometimes, but that is at the very very bottom of my list of benefits. I want the app UI specifically, and Homebridge enables that. (one concrete example: Ring doorbells don't play nicely with Homekit on their own, but you can install a Homebridge extension and then your doorbell camera shows up as a Homekit-compatible camera in the Home app).
It’s also handy in that you get remote access with no extra port forwarding.
For me both services are primarily for things that don't natively support HomeKit (my vacuum, logitech harmony, the receiver for my sound system, and a couple other things).
I also use home assistant to expose a couple of fake accessories for state tracking for some automation, and I do a little bit of more advanced automation in home assistant.
I use both though since some plugins in the home assistant side are way to complex (and causes issues due to that complexity) for what I need to just expose controls to homekit, or don't work as well as the homebridge version.