Hi everyone,
I’ve been a long-time Home Assistant user and I know the drill: You just flashed a fresh HAOS onto your Raspberry Pi, plugged it in, and now you’re waiting for it to show up. Sometimes mDNS works perfectly with homeassistant.local:8123, but other times – especially on complex networks or certain Android devices – it can be a bit of a hide-and-seek game.
To make this easier (and to bundle some useful maker tools), I’ve developed the raspberry.tips App for Android. It’s currently in open beta and I’d love to get some feedback from the HA community!
What it does for HA users:
- Dedicated Scanner: It specifically looks for Raspberry Pi hardware using mDNS, MAC address OUI checks, and port scanning.
- HAOS Detection: It identifies open ports like 8123 (HA default) and 22 (SSH), making it easy to find your instance even if the hostname isn’t resolving yet.
- Quick Access: Direct “Open in Browser” button for your HA Dashboard.
- Maker Toolbox: Includes integrated tools like a GPIO Pinout (super handy when wiring up sensors for ESPHome or HA), a WPA Supplicant generator, and various electronics calculators.
I need your help with:
- Discovery Reliability: Does it find your HAOS instance reliably in your network?
- Device Identification: Is your Pi correctly identified as “Raspberry Pi” (via MAC check)?
- UX/UI: Is the workflow from scanning to opening the dashboard smooth for you?
Join the Beta Test here:
** 
https://play.google.com/apps/testing/tips.raspberry.rpi_app**
The app is free, and the source code is available on GitHub for transparency: GitHub - raspberry-tips/rpi-app: Android App zum Auffinden von Raspberry Pis im Heimnetz - IP Scanner und Tools von raspberry.tips · GitHub
I’m looking forward to your feedback and bug reports to make this a solid tool for the community!
Cheers,
Philipp
