Hello, first time post here.
Edit: (I just came across the “Help us Help You” post here in Home Assistant Community. I wasn’t aware of HAC forum etiquette prepost. Please bare with me as I continue to read through the post. Afterwords, I will attempt to seek out any information that’s already available regarding my question and will remove my post if I do. If not, I will come back and include the specified information mentioned in the post. Thank you for your patience and understanding. PS: I tried adding Home Assistant URL in both the categories and optional tags sections of this post as recommended by the “Help us Help You” post. However, both searches came up empty. I’ll try searching for it here in HAC as well as a few other HA information sources)
I’m fair new to the world of HA. For the most part, I built my smart home using Aqara devices primarily within Aqara’s app. I began experimenting by exposing my Aqara Zigbee devices within Google Home and Samsung SmartThings ecosystems using my Aqara Hub’s matter bridge. Interoperability opened up access to Google’s Nest Speaker and Samsung SmartThings circadian lighting. However, the ability to expand my Aqara devices into 3 different ecosystems I soon discovered came with it’s own set of limitations and compatibility issues. Solutions for which required spending some digging around the internet. It was just a matter of time before I began coming across commenter’s in forums time and time again mentioning HA. In my head at the time, this omniscient mythical beast of a ecosystem simply referred to as HA seemed to hold the answers to all of the limitations and compatibility problems I kept running with my current triad ecosystem set up. After discovering Home Assistant wasn’t an attempt to prank people into believing that such perfect solutions existed by naming it HA. I began my journey down the rabbit hole into the world of HA.
Apologizes for the intro before my actual question. Just wanted to give a little background info before entering the fray. Now that’s said and done. Onto the questions explanation.
I flashed my HAOS onto an laptop I was no longer using. I’m using HA companion app for Android to connect. I signed up for the free month of Nabu Casa’s Home Assistant Cloud service just a few days short of a month ago. Since then, in an attempt to fin an alternative solution that would enable me to be able to connect to my HA instance will away from home. I downloaded and set up both Duck DNS and WireGuard with/on my HA. Which worked fine for a few weeks until I had to leave the laptop I’m running HAOS on unplugged for long enough that the the old battery died inside. By the time I was able to plug my laptop back in and turn it on, HA had rebooted and I lost my ability to access it. I followed some instructions from Google Gemini on how to reconnect. Which I was thankfully able to. I’m learning more and more that it’s unwise to just blindly trust LLM’s advice. As it had told me to use duck DNS domain name (https://haddnsexample.duckdns.org) to fill in both “Use Home Assistant Cloud” and “Local Network” section under Network > System > Settings in my HA instance. As well as “Home Assistant URL” and “Internal Connection URL” under Connection Information > Server > Services & Devices > Companion App in my HA app. I had a gut feeling that this didn’t make sense. However, I just went with it because it worked at the time. I also set up WireGuard in HA that am using with my phone. Google Gemini’s instructions seemed to get the job done there as well. However, when I was unable to connect to my HA instance after reboot. Nothing I had set up was allowing me to regain access. Now that I’ve explained why I’m asking the question. It’s finally time for the question itself.
I’ve included two screenshots of my HA Network page and my HA companion apps “Connection Information” page. I was wondering if anyone could explain what these are and advise me on the correct addresses need to be entered into them in order to give me local access to my HA instance while home and using Duck DNS as the secure way to access my HA instance while I’m away from home. Also, I’m a little uncertain about how WireGuard works with HA. I’m familiar with WireGuards implementation as a server within my router which allows me to access my router while I’m away from home. However, with Duck DNS acting as a secure https connection to my HA instance. Wouldn’t the implementation of WireGuard as a server within HA also be allowing me to access my HA instance securely while away from home? If so, would the implementation of both Duck DNS and a WireGuard server be redundant? I don’t know.
I’m fairly new to HA. I’m just learning as I go. I’m hoping that some kind soul would take mercy on me and be willing to help me not just with what info to enter. But also explain the how, what and why of this topic so that I may learn and understand. All answers, tips, explanation and advice of any kind is always greatly appreciated.
You have my thanks and gratitude in advance.
