Home Assistant’s 2026.8 update finally makes onboarding feel like a modern app: a real setup wizard, sensible defaults, and a guided first automation. That is a big deal for anyone who bounced off Home Assistant a year ago because the first hour was a text file crawl. The desktop side is only half the story. Your Android phone becomes the single most useful sensor and remote in the whole setup, once you install the right apps around it. These are the seven we install on any new Home Assistant setup, and why.
What to look for in a Home Assistant Android app
- First-class HA integration. Look for a Home Assistant integration doc for the app, not just an incidental use case.
- Sensor breadth. Location, battery, network, active app, and steps are the phone sensors most useful in automations.
- Widgets and quick controls. A launcher widget or Quick Settings tile is the difference between using an automation and forgetting it exists.
- Wear OS support. For anyone with a smartwatch, wear extensions make routines much more natural.
- Local-only operation. Prefer apps that talk to HA on the LAN and do not require a cloud account.
- Automation depth. Some apps are HA-native. Others (Tasker, MacroDroid, Automate) act as an Android-side automation engine that HA can trigger.
Quick comparison
| App | Best for | Free plan | Starting price | HA integration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Assistant Companion | Official app, sensor and control base | Yes, fully | Free | Native |
| Fully Kiosk Browser | Turning a spare tablet into a dashboard | Yes with limits | About $8 one-time | Wide (kiosk sensors) |
| Tasker | Deep Android-side automation | Trial | About $4 one-time | Via HTTP or plugin |
| MacroDroid | Simple visual automation | Free tier | Pro about $5 | Via HTTP action |
| Owntracks | Reliable HA-native presence detection | Yes | Free (open source) | Native integration |
| nRF Connect for Mobile | Bluetooth sniffing for BLE integrations | Yes | Free | Complements HA BLE |
| WallPanel | Kiosk dashboard with motion detect | Yes | Free (open source) | Camera and MQTT support |
The 7 best beginner Home Assistant Android apps
1. Home Assistant Companion, the mandatory first install
Home Assistant Companion is the official Android client and the app that unlocks Home Assistant’s true value on a phone. Beyond a dashboard, it publishes 30 phone-side sensors (battery level, activity, geofence, connection type, active app, and more) that HA can use directly in automations. It supports Actionable Notifications (tap a button in a notification to run an automation), Wear OS shortcuts, and Quick Settings tiles for one-tap device control.
The 2026.8 companion release matches the desktop onboarding revamp with a guided sensor picker and a simpler push notification setup.
Where it falls short: No app-store dashboard editor. Dashboards live in HA itself.
Pricing:
- Free, open-source
Platforms: Android, iOS, and Wear OS
Download: Aptoide · Google Play
Bottom line: Install this before anything else. Do not skip the sensor setup step.
2. Fully Kiosk Browser, best for a wall-mounted dashboard tablet
Fully Kiosk Browser turns an old Android tablet into a full-screen Home Assistant dashboard mounted on the wall. It loads a Lovelace view and stays there, prevents accidental home-button exits, and adds motion detection through the tablet camera to wake the screen only when someone is nearby. It publishes battery, screen state, and motion back to Home Assistant through a REST API.
For anyone with a spare tablet, this is the cheapest way to get a whole-house wall dashboard.
Where it falls short: The free tier watermarks the screen with a Fully logo overlay. The one-time paid license removes it.
Pricing:
- Free with a watermark and some feature limits
- Full license about $8 one-time per device
Platforms: Android tablets and Fire tablets
Download: Google Play
Bottom line: The go-to for a wall-mounted HA dashboard.
3. Tasker, best deep Android-side automation
Tasker runs the automation side that Home Assistant cannot: things that need to happen on the phone (change a Bluetooth setting, launch an app, adjust volume) rather than in the house. Combine it with Home Assistant via HTTP requests or the AutoRemote plugin, and you get bidirectional automations where HA can ask the phone to do something and the phone can ask HA back.
The learning curve is real but the ceiling is very high.
Where it falls short: The interface is dated. Beginners often start with MacroDroid instead.
Pricing:
- 7-day trial
- About $4 one-time
Platforms: Android only
Download: Google Play
Bottom line: The most powerful Android automation engine, pairs well with HA.
4. MacroDroid, best simple visual automation
MacroDroid is the friendlier alternative to Tasker. Triggers, actions, and constraints appear as visual blocks, and the app ships hundreds of ready-made templates. For Home Assistant use, the HTTP Request action is the important one: it lets any macro trigger a Home Assistant service call in one step.
The free tier caps you at five macros, which is enough to learn on. Pro removes the cap.
Where it falls short: Not as deep as Tasker for edge cases. Some triggers require accessibility permission that OEMs periodically reset.
Pricing:
- Free with a five-macro cap
- Pro about $5 one-time
Platforms: Android only
Download: Google Play
Bottom line: The easiest way to add Android-side automation without a two-week learning curve.
5. Owntracks, best HA-native presence detection
Owntracks is open-source location tracking designed for self-hosters. It publishes phone location to a private MQTT broker or an Owntracks HTTP endpoint, and Home Assistant reads it directly through the built-in Owntracks integration. Presence-based automations (turn off lights when nobody is home, unlock the door when I approach) become both reliable and private, because nothing leaves the LAN unless you set it to.
For Home Assistant users who tried the built-in geofence and found it unreliable, Owntracks solves the problem.
Where it falls short: MQTT setup adds a small learning curve if you have not used it before. Battery use depends on the update frequency you configure.
Pricing:
- Free, open-source
Platforms: Android and iOS
Download: Google Play
Bottom line: The reliable answer for HA presence detection that runs in your house, not the cloud.
6. nRF Connect for Mobile, best for Bluetooth integration debugging
nRF Connect for Mobile by Nordic Semiconductor is a Bluetooth scanner and debugger that is invaluable when adding BLE devices to Home Assistant. When a new sensor refuses to appear in HA, nRF Connect tells you whether it is broadcasting at all, what advertisement data it sends, and whether HA’s BLE integration should be able to see it.
For beginners setting up ESPHome BLE proxies, room-scale presence, or new Xiaomi Bluetooth sensors, this app cuts hours of blind guessing.
Where it falls short: It is a debugging tool, not a control app. Once your sensors work you may only open it once every few months.
Pricing:
- Free
Platforms: Android and iOS
Download: Google Play
Bottom line: Keep it installed. The day you need it, you really need it.
7. WallPanel, best free kiosk dashboard alternative
WallPanel is an open-source alternative to Fully Kiosk. It loads a Home Assistant Lovelace view full-screen on an Android tablet and publishes camera-based motion detection back to HA via MQTT. It costs nothing and has no watermark.
If the tablet is not a critical control surface (you can accept the occasional crash or updates that reset the URL), WallPanel is the free option that mostly matches Fully.
Where it falls short: Fewer stability improvements than Fully, and update cadence is slower.
Pricing:
- Free, open-source
Platforms: Android tablets
Download: Google Play
Bottom line: The free path to a kiosk tablet dashboard if you do not want to pay for Fully.
How to pick the right first apps
- You are new to Home Assistant: Companion first, then Owntracks for presence, then MacroDroid for the first few Android-side automations.
- You have a spare tablet: Add Fully Kiosk (or WallPanel if you want it free) to build a wall dashboard.
- You want deep automation on the phone side: Tasker.
- You are building BLE presence rooms: nRF Connect for debugging.
Do not install all seven at once. Companion plus one presence app is enough for the first week. Add the rest as your automations grow.
FAQ
What is the first app to install for a new Home Assistant setup?
Home Assistant Companion. It publishes phone-side sensors that most beginner automations depend on and is the official way to talk to HA from Android.
Do I need Nabu Casa for the mobile app to work?
No. Nabu Casa is optional and mostly for remote access outside your home network. On the LAN, Companion works entirely against a local Home Assistant install.
Is Home Assistant Companion battery hungry?
It costs about 1 to 3 percent battery per hour depending on how many sensors you enable and how often they update. Turn off sensors you do not use, and set high-accuracy location only when needed.
How does Owntracks compare to the built-in Home Assistant location sensor?
Owntracks is generally more reliable and more private because it uses MQTT to your own broker. The built-in sensor uses Google’s location APIs and is easier to set up but can be flaky on some Androids.
Can I run Home Assistant automations on the phone directly?
Not natively. Home Assistant runs the automation, and Companion delivers notifications and sensor data. For phone-side reactions (change ringtone, launch an app), use Tasker or MacroDroid triggered by HA.
