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Homebridge 2.0 Is Here: Matter Compatibility Changes Everything
After three years in beta, Homebridge 2.0 was finally released on Monday, May 4, 2026. This open source project, already capable of creating fake bridges to trick Apple HomeKit, now includes the universal Matter standard. Here’s what you need to know.
Matter Comes to Homebridge
If you are a home automation enthusiast and you have Apple hardware, you probably know this tool: Homebridge. This solution makes it possible to integrate devices that are not normally compatible with HomeKit (Apple) by emulating a bridge. The project is popular: there are thousands of plugins to make it easier to integrate a wide variety of products (Ring, Nest, TP-Link Kasa, UniFi Protect, SwitchBot, etc.). For those who want to use HomeKit, this is a big advantage because it avoids having to use X proprietary apps, with everything centralized.
With the release of version 2.0, Homebridge goes even further: it can now make HomeKit coexist with Matter, the standard launched in late 2022. The idea remains the same since Homebridge can make a non-compatible device appear as a Matter device by acting as a bridge.
And in practice, that changes a lot of things:
- Cross-platform compatibility: a camera designed exclusively for Alexa could appear in Google Home, Apple Home, Samsung SmartThings, or even Home Assistant (another open source solution).
- A second life for your old devices: equipment that no longer receives updates from its manufacturer or is not Matter-compatible can join your ecosystem.
- Support for new categories: some products, such as ovens or certain robotic vacuums, are only supported by Apple through a Matter bridge. Homebridge 2.0 makes it possible to work around this limitation, as long as the device is already a connected device.
These benefits and use cases are notably highlighted on Reddit in the post dedicated to the Homebridge 2.0 announcement.
From Now On, Matter Plugins Need to Be Built
The Homebridge community is already behind the creation of many plugins to add support for devices with HomeKit. From now on, new plugins will need to be rebuilt to do the same thing in the context of Matter. But that is the strength of open source: the community will gradually build up this plugin base.
In any case, Homebridge 2.0 is here, and this new release is ready to become the single platform for Apple HomeKit and Matter. In the meantime, Homebridge 2.0 images will be deployed in different forms: Docker image, image for Raspbian, ready-to-use packages (for Debian, for example), or even a virtual machine image.
If this project interests you, I also encourage you to take a look at Homebridge UI to get a web-based management interface. It makes Homebridge easier to configure, especially when integrating plugins (which avoids having to work with JSON files). This web interface also includes other features, such as instance backup.
