Astrion Remote for Home Assistant – Sideloading, Fully Kiosk & Button Remapping Guide

[skavan]

@thebradleysanders - awesome guide. I ditched the HA Companion install because it quietly consumes precious battery.

@Mochi - you comments mirror my own thoughts - but there is a third option, webview - but with an open source stack on top of it.

I built the beginnings of such a beast. You can check it out here:

Harmonium — a fast, activity-based universal-remote platform for Home Assistant (open beta via HACS)

I have a jumble of remotes on my coffee table. Even today, in 2026. There are hardware remotes out there — the Astrion, Haptique RS90, the Unfolded Circle — with exactly the right form factor, but the software isn’t (IMO) ready for daily-driver duty, and most of it is closed source. Two of them, the Astrion and the RS90, run stock Android under the hood — but their modest hardware can’t cope with the firehose of Lovelace connections that comes with the HA Companion app, which is why all these v…