# Itsyhome: a macOS menu bar for HomeKit and Home Assistant > Itsyhome is a native Swift menu bar application for macOS that puts lights, locks, blinds, thermostats, cameras and sensors a click away, working against both Apple HomeKit and a Home Assistant server over its WebSocket API. The interesting part is the menu design, with auto groups that fold similar devices into one-click rows, and the fact that a Pro tier covers the integrations a power user actually wants. **nickustinov/itsyhome-macos** — A native macOS menu bar app for controlling your smart home devices. - Repository: https://github.com/nickustinov/itsyhome-macos - Website: https://itsyhome.app - Stars: 1,000 · Forks: 36 - Language: Swift - License: MIT - Published: 2026-10-19 · Updated: 2026-10-19 · Language: en - Canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/nickustinov-itsyhome-macos ## A control surface that lives in the menu bar Itsyhome is a native macOS menu bar app for controlling your smart home devices, and the repository is the macOS piece of a family that also includes iOS and tvOS apps and a free companion app called Itsytv for controlling Apple TV from the menu bar. The macOS app is written in Swift, with a badge for Swift 5.9 and a requirement of macOS 14 or newer, and it is built with AppKit for what the README calls a true macOS look and feel. There is a test workflow badge in the README, and the repository layout shows a top-level application directory, a macOSBridge/ directory with its own macOSBridgeTests/ companion, a project.yml file, and a docs/ directory. The project.yml is worth noting, because it points to a generated build rather than hand-managed Xcode project files, which keeps a project of this size mergeable. The design idea is narrow and, for a smart home, genuinely useful. The menu bar is where a person already is, and a menu is a better surface than a phone app for the operations you perform while sitting at a computer. The features list leads with that, menu bar access to control your smart home from the macOS menu bar, and everything else hangs off it. ## Two smart home stacks, one menu The app works with both HomeKit and Home Assistant, and the README is clear that the choice is made on first launch and can be changed at any time in Settings, General. HomeKit support is described as a full integration with Apple HomeKit devices and scenes, and there is multi-home support, so you can switch between several HomeKit homes. The device table is extensive. Lights get on and off, a brightness slider, an RGB colour picker and a colour temperature picker. Switches and outlets get a toggle, with an in-use indicator for outlets. Fans get a speed slider, auto mode, rotation direction and swing mode. Thermostats get the usual modes, a target temperature stepper and heating and cooling thresholds for auto mode. Locks get a lock and unlock toggle with status, garage doors get an open and close toggle with a status display that distinguishes opening, closing and stopped plus obstruction detection, and blinds get a position slider with horizontal and vertical tilt control. Home Assistant is reached over the WebSocket API for real-time updates. The setup is short: in Home Assistant go to Profile, then Security, then Long-Lived Access Tokens, create a token, and enter the server URL and the token in the Itsyhome settings. The entity table mirrors the HomeKit one, with the additional entities Home Assistant exposes, including alarm control panels, humidifiers, valves, scenes with state tracking, binary sensors and numeric sensors. The notes at the end are the ones that matter in practice. Entities are automatically grouped by device and area. Cameras require the stream integration for live video. And scene state tracking requires scenes created in Home Assistant. ## Auto groups, and why the menu stays short The feature that shows real thought about the medium is auto groups. Similar devices are folded into one-click groups, the examples given are All lights and All blinds, and they appear at the top level and in every room, with a master toggle and the member devices in a submenu. Three details make it work. The groups are on by default, which matters because a feature that has to be enabled per room will not be. They are reorderable and hideable like any other section. And the master toggle is separate from the submenu, so the common action, everything off, is one click while the specific device is two. That is the difference between a menu that lists forty lights and a menu that lists six rooms. The user model of a smart home is rooms and intents rather than a flat inventory of endpoints, and the auto groups are the mechanism that translates one into the other without the user writing any rule. The other menu features follow the same logic. Favourites pin frequently used devices, scenes and groups to the top. Menu bar pinning lets you pin rooms, devices, scenes, groups or auto groups as separate menu bar items, with optional keyboard shortcuts, which is how you turn a control surface into something you can drive without looking. Scenes can be executed and toggled with automatic state tracking, and the localisations cover 12 languages including German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese. ## What the Pro tier actually unlocks A large share of the feature list is marked Pro, and an adopter should know which half they are buying. The free core is the menu bar, HomeKit and Home Assistant support, device groups, auto groups, scenes, favourites, multi-home support, menu bar pinning and localisation. The Pro additions are the integrations that reach beyond the menu. iCloud sync of favourites, groups and settings across your Macs. Deeplinks to control devices from Shortcuts, Alfred, Raycast and Stream Deck. A camera feature with a live multi-stream grid, custom layouts and overlay action buttons to control nearby accessories. Doorbell notifications, with an automatic camera view and live stream when the doorbell rings. A webhooks and CLI feature, a built-in HTTP server with a dedicated CLI tool. An event stream over Server-Sent Events for real-time device state changes for external automation. Virtual HomeKit sensors, publishing Itsyhome's own bridge to Apple Home with virtual sensors driven by webhooks or built-in automations. And sensor history, 30-day charts for temperature, humidity and binary sensors, right in the menu. The pattern is clear and defensible. The things that only make sense on one machine and involve no other system are free, and the things that turn the app into a platform, with a server, a stream, a bridge and a sync service, cost money. The build and the app are on the Mac App Store, and the site itsyhome.app is the product home. So the project is a commercial product with an open source repository rather than the other way round, and the MIT licence on the repository is what a reader can rely on. ## Sensors as read-only rows, and the case for a menu Sensors get a treatment that is unusual for a control app. Contact, motion, occupancy, leak, smoke, CO and CO2 sensors appear as read-only rows, with state-aware icons, battery indicators for battery-powered accessories, and pinnable menu bar readings for the ones you want to glance at. Read-only is the design decision worth noting. A control menu that let you switch a smoke detector off would be dangerous, and a menu that showed you a motion sensor's state would be useless. Splitting the two means the menu can hold both kinds of device without the interaction model becoming ambiguous. The Home Assistant table follows the same logic. Binary sensors map contact, motion, occupancy, moisture, smoke and CO classes to dedicated rows, and any other class shows On or Off. Numeric sensors show their value and unit with a device-class icon, so CO2, power, pressure and illuminance all read correctly without configuration. This is where the 30-day charts earn their place. A menu is a good surface for a current reading and a bad surface for a history, and the charts are the answer to a question the menu otherwise cannot answer: is the temperature in the bedroom trending up? The HomeKit side likewise offers a temperature and humidity summary per room with ranges, which is a different aggregation from the individual sensor rows. ## Where Itsyhome is the wrong choice The first wrong-tool case is a non-macOS machine. This is a macOS menu bar app, with a requirement of macOS 14 or newer, and although there are iOS and tvOS apps, the menu bar concept, the AppKit experience and the menu bar pinning are macOS only. A Linux or Windows user gets nothing here, and the Home Assistant mobile app is the answer for them. The second is a Home Assistant user who is happy with the mobile app and the dashboard. Itsyhome adds a menu bar surface, and for someone who only controls a light occasionally that is not worth a purchase or a second system to learn. The third is a household with a mixed or unstable smart home. The app is a bridge between two ecosystems, and a bridge is a component that can lag behind either. A new Home Assistant release that changes an entity class, or a HomeKit update that changes an accessory characteristic, lands in the app as a missing control. The README's own notes, cameras requiring the stream integration and scene state tracking requiring scenes created in Home Assistant, are the kind of detail that suggests where the edges are. There is also the security dimension of running a bridge. The Pro tier includes an HTTP server for webhooks and the ability to publish virtual sensors back to Apple Home, which means the app has a network surface of its own on a machine that probably also has your passwords in it. That is a reasonable thing for the developer to offer and a reasonable thing for you to think about before enabling it. ## MIT in the repository, a paid app in the store The repository is MIT licensed, with the LICENSE file at the root, and the app itself is distributed through the Mac App Store, with a download badge in the README. The project also has a CHANGELOG.md, a CONTRIBUTING.md, a docs/ directory and a.github/ directory. The default branch is main, and the last push was on 2026-09-01, so the work is current within a couple of months of this review. There are no GitHub releases, which is consistent with a project whose shipped artefact is an App Store build rather than a downloadable package. The two things a reader should take away are about licensing and about who runs it. The code is MIT, so the repository can be read, studied and forked, and the MIT terms ask only that the copyright notice be kept. The product, however, has a Pro tier that buys the features with a real server in them, which is the commercial part of the arrangement and the reason the repository exists. The technical footprint is also clear from the badge line, Swift 5.9 and macOS 14 or newer, so the app is not usable on the older Macs that a lot of smart home hardware sits next to, and a household with a mixed-vintage Mac estate has to think about that before installing. ## Conclusion Adopt Itsyhome if you run macOS, you have either HomeKit or Home Assistant, and you want a keyboard-reachable control surface that does not mean opening an app on the phone, and be aware that the interesting parts, cameras, doorbells, webhooks, the event stream and the 30-day charts, are behind the Pro purchase. Do not adopt it for a Linux or Windows desktop, for a Home Assistant setup where you are content with the mobile app, or if you cannot accept that a bridge between two smart home stacks is a component that can and will be out of date with both. Before you install, decide which platform you will connect first, because the Home Assistant setup asks for a long-lived access token and a server URL in the app settings. ## FAQ ### What is Itsyhome and what does it control? It is a native macOS menu bar app for controlling a smart home, working with both Apple HomeKit and a Home Assistant server. It supports lights, switches, fans, thermostats, blinds, locks, garage doors, humidifiers, air purifiers, valves, security systems, cameras, doorbells and sensors, and it also has iOS and tvOS apps plus a free Itsytv companion for Apple TV. ### How do I connect Itsyhome to Home Assistant? In Home Assistant go to Profile, then Security, then Long-Lived Access Tokens and create a token, then enter the server URL and the token in the Itsyhome settings. The app connects over the WebSocket API for real-time updates, and the platform can be switched later in Settings, General. ### What are the auto groups in Itsyhome? They fold similar devices into one-click groups such as All lights and All blinds, shown at the top level and in every room, with a master toggle and the member devices in a submenu. They are on by default and can be reordered and hidden like any other section. ### Which Itsyhome features require the Pro tier? iCloud sync of favourites, groups and settings, deeplinks for Shortcuts, Alfred, Raycast and Stream Deck, the camera multi-stream grid, doorbell notifications, the webhooks and CLI feature with its built-in HTTP server, the Server-Sent Events stream, virtual HomeKit sensors, and the 30-day sensor history charts. ### What are the system requirements for Itsyhome? It is built with AppKit, the README badges state Swift 5.9 and macOS 14 or newer, and the app is distributed through the Mac App Store. The repository is MIT licensed, there are no GitHub releases, and the last push was on 2026-09-01. ## Sources - [Issues](https://github.com/nickustinov/itsyhome-macos/issues) - [License: MIT](https://github.com/nickustinov/itsyhome-macos/blob/main/LICENSE) - [nickustinov/itsyhome-macos on GitHub](https://github.com/nickustinov/itsyhome-macos) - [Project website](https://itsyhome.app) - [README](https://github.com/nickustinov/itsyhome-macos/blob/main/README.md) --- Hysen Labs editorial analysis, written from the project's own repository and release notes. Cite the canonical page: https://hysenlabs.com/projects/nickustinov-itsyhome-macos