How I add Govee Lights behind a Docker Bridged Network

Configuration
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Hey,
I would like to share how I managed to control the Govee Lights in a docker bridged network, with the regular “Govee Local” Integration.

The challenge:
Govee uses UDP multicast, which needs to be correctly routed to our networked container.

The solution for Multicast:

Step 1: Relay the multicast messages

I added this multicast relay to make sure the multicast protocol survives network boundaries.

Here:

  • The enp2s0f0 is the interface of my host machine
  • the other device (br-fab25dbbd9b8) is derived from the network-id as inspected with docker network list.
  • 1.1.1.1 is a hard-coded trigger to enable source ip spoofing (required so that the light strip talks back to the right machine).
  • rest of the values can stay like they are.

  govee-multicast-relay:
    image: frits/udp-broadcast-relay-redux:v2
    restart: unless-stopped
    # Host network = same L2 as your WiFi/IoT devices
    network_mode: host
    command: >
      --id 8
      -d
      -s 1.1.1.1
      --dev enp2s0f0
      --dev br-fab25dbbd9b8
      --port 4001
      --multicast 239.255.255.250

Once this container starts up nicely you can remove the -d flag to disable debug output.

Step 2:
Your home assistant container needs to be able to communicate UDP unicast with the govee devices:

ports:
      - 8123:8123 # you might skip this if you only access HA through a reverse proxy
      - 4002:4002/udp # govee led strip

Now we are able to add the Govee Local integration to control colorful LED strips.