Homeway is a Home Assistant community project, positioned as a free, private, and secure Home Assistant cloud platform, primarily offering remote access and AI assistant capabilities.
In terms of use, Homeway helps users securely access their Home Assistant instance from outside their home network without having to expose the server directly to the public internet. At the same time, it brings AI capabilities into Home Assistant for voice and chat interaction, controlling the home, querying information, checking the weather, and more.
Main capabilities include: free remote access, with support for the Home Assistant iOS and Android apps; Google Home and Alexa support; WebRTC camera streaming; ChatGPT-based assistance; realistic text-to-speech voices; MCP; and Sage AI, among others. Sage is an AI assistant powered by Claude 4.7, ChatGPT 5, Gemini, and others, supporting realistic voice and chat interaction with Home Assistant Assist, and can be personalized through custom prompts and more than 80 voices provided by ElevenLabs. Homeway also offers a free AI MCP server that can be used with any AI, including Claude Connector, OpenAI ChatGPT App, and others. Its wireless camera streaming uses end-to-end encrypted WebRTC, obtained directly from the Home Assistant dashboard. Homeway also provides a free STUN server and limited free TURN server usage, while TURN server supporters can use it without limits. Through Homeway's secure Local Access feature, services on the local network can be accessed, such as Node-RED, Unraid, AdGuard, Bitwarden, and Pi-hole, among others.
In terms of usage, users need to add the Homeway add-on to their own Home Assistant server. Homeway provides step-by-step guides to make it easy to set up capabilities such as Sage AI. Its Sage AI is described as setting up OpenAI ChatGPT or Google G in Home AssistantThe simplest and free way to use emini large models, with no integration or developer key required; it is also the easiest way to set up text-to-speech in Home Assistant and use ElevenLabs' realistic voices. The AI MCP server is simple to set up; you only need to provide Homeway's link to Claude or ChatGPT. Remote access uses an end-to-end encrypted tunnel, and accounts are protected by email two-factor authentication and optional time-based one-time verification codes. The server is not exposed to the public internet, and users can share public access through a unique shared connection link, with the link's validity and lifecycle fully controlled by the user. Homeway is built on a global server network, forming a remote access mesh to provide low-latency access.
Applicable scenarios include: users who need secure access to Home Assistant from an external network; users who want to control their home through Alexa, Google Home, or AI voice assistants; users who expect to use large models such as ChatGPT and Gemini in Home Assistant as well as text-to-speech; users who need remote access to LAN services; and users who want WebRTC camera streaming for the Home Assistant dashboard.
Limitations and notes: Homeway is a community-funded project, and its main features are free to the community, but certain limits are in place to sustain operations; as revenue increases, the limits on free accounts will be raised. Supporter Perks provide additional benefits, such as unlimited remote access, high-priority remote MCP server routing, unlimited WebRTC camera streaming, real-time latency and advanced LLMs for Sage AI, unlimited Alexa and Google Assistant, unlimited app remote access, and unthrottled data speeds. Homeway states that it will not sell user data to any third-party company or service; if the Sage AI service is used, limited and anonymous data will be sent to third parties (for example, for rendering text-to-speech voices), and the data will be immediately deleted from Homeway services. Regarding Homeway's relationship with Nabu Casa, the material mentions that many users keep both, and Homeway focuses on features not covered by Nabu Casa, such as hosted remote MCP, free Sage AI, and a permanently free remote access tier. Homeway is built by members of the Home Assistant community,and is a small independent project with no investors.
Regarding pricing, specific charge amounts, free quota limits, supported countries or regions, number of server locations, total bandwidth, specific latency values, the full privacy policy, complete registration and installation steps, supported Home Assistant versions, and all details of MCP setup, the material does not currently provide them.