Unofficial Homekit support for your Taycan! [Plugin available for download]

[Jasper4S]

Hi all,

Since 2 weeks I'm proud owner of a beautiful gentian blue Taycan 4s Sport Turismo. I bought it because it was a Porsche (duh) but also because it is a tech car with all the beautiful displays and options. Last week I was playing around with the Porsche Connect API (I am a software developer), to see what options were available to play with. As a hobby project I made a Homekit plugin to see the Charge state and battery level in my Apple Home app. The API is pretty cool, so more will come in the future.

So this is the result;

The plugin exposes 2 sensors; one to show you if your car is charging (occupancy sensor, occupancy detected = charging, no occupancy detected = not charging) and one to show you the battery level. Above examples are screenshots taken when the car was not charging. Below an example when it is;

These sensors enable me to make more smart home automations, as my whole home is automated. For example. I can turn off other devices when the car is charging, turn on devices when my car is not charging etc. The Apple Home app is pretty flexible, so everything that you can think of is automatable. If you have a smart home, I'm pretty sure that you are probably now thinking of some cool automations you want to setup .

This plugin is made for Homebridge, A NodeJS solution to add unsupported devices to HomeKit. An example how this plugin looks like in Homebridge;

I really like free software myself, so I made this plugin available through NPM and GitHub. Feel free to use it, change it or improve it .
- You can find the source code here: https://github.com/jasper-seinhorst/homebridge-porsche-taycan
- and the NPM package here: https://www.npmjs.com/package/homebridge-porsche-taycan

More info about Homebridge can be found here: https://homebridge.io/

Please let me know if you are interested in future updates and extra capabilities. I can use this thread to keep you up-to-date. If you have any feedback, feel free to reach out!

Cheers! Jasper

Currently I'm planning to add lock/unlock and climate control capabilities. But it will take a while since this is a hobby project and have limited time.


==== update 03-03 ====
Version 0.3.0 has been released with support for Doors and Windows.You'll see the state (open/closed) of Doors and Windows in your home app.

 

[laua]

This is awesome! I’ll check it out when I take delivery. Any chance the API allows you to start pre heating/cooling? Then I can creatr automations where pre heating/cooling occurs when I’m at home, and outdoor temp reaches a certain level.

 

[Jasper4S]

This is awesome! I’ll check it out when I take delivery. Any chance the API allows you to start pre heating/cooling? Then I can creatr automations where pre heating/cooling occurs when I’m at home, and outdoor temp reaches a certain level.

Yeah I think I’ve the option. When I have time I’ll add it ! (Or feel free to add it yourself if you have the skills)

 

[kurand]

I was think about starting something like this only a couple of days ago - you beat me to it and saved me some time. Thanks. I’ll try it out over the weekend on my Cayenne e-hybrid; don’t see why it would not work. my Taycan is not due till later in March. I’m sure lots more functionality can be exposed in due course.

 

[kurand]

Ok, I see you hard coded looking for taycan. Actually, my soon to be delivered Taycan is already registered with my porsche connect account, but it currently locked in privacy mode until delivery.

log looks like this:

3/3/2023, 4:43:30 PM] [homebridge-porsche-taycan] Launched child bridge with PID 102850
[3/3/2023, 4:43:30 PM] Registering platform 'homebridge-porsche-taycan.PorscheTaycan'
[3/3/2023, 4:43:30 PM] [homebridge-porsche-taycan] Loaded homebridge-porsche-taycan v0.1.0 child bridge successfully
[3/3/2023, 4:43:30 PM] Homebridge v1.6.0 (HAP v0.11.0) (homebridge-porsche-taycan) is running on port 39633.
[3/3/2023, 4:43:38 PM] [homebridge-porsche-taycan] Adding new accessory: Taycan
TypeError: Cannot read properties of null (reading 'stateOfChargeInPercentage')
at PorscheChargerAccessory.getBatteryState (/var/lib/homebridge/node_modules/homebridge-porsche-taycan/src/chargerAccessory.ts:44:55)
at processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5)
[3/3/2023, 4:44:46 PM] [homebridge-porsche-taycan] Child bridge process ended
[3/3/2023, 4:44:46 PM] [homebridge-porsche-taycan] Process Ended. Code: 1, Signal: null
[3/3/2023, 4:44:53 PM] [homebridge-porsche-taycan] Restarting Process...

etc for ever - I stopped the plug-in.

 

[Jasper4S]

I was think about starting something like this only a couple of days ago - you beat me to it and saved me some time. Thanks. I’ll try it out over the weekend on my Cayenne e-hybrid; don’t see why it would not work. my Taycan is not due till later in March. I’m sure lots more functionality can be exposed in due course.

Good one, I can support the hybrid cars also.. the errors could also be resolved, give me a few days

 

[bob66hall]

Fantastic, guys! Likely I'll NEVER have the skills to co-develop with you. But will always be an appreciative UX test case for you. Press on, with thanks from the bleachers!

 

[rs38]

I know it's easy to criticise and I did not check the code completely, but it's always worth a mention:

dev security rule #1: don't write your own security implementation
dev security rule #2: don't save clear text passwords beneath the code

see my comment two years ago:
https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/taycan-client-software-development.3633/page-6#post-54948

 

[TYKHAAAN]

I know it's easy to criticise and I did not check the code completely, but it's always worth a mention:

dev security rule #1: don't write your own security implementation
dev security rule #2: don't save clear text passwords beneath the code

see my comment two years ago:
https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/taycan-client-software-development.3633/page-6#post-54948

As a cyber person with some software assurance background, preach brother, preach!!!

As an owner of the vehicle, OP and all you devs in here doing this stuff, you guys absolutely rock! Thanks!

 

[legataycan]

Could I change the poll time to seconds? What would be the potential downside to that? Is Porsche Connect going to rate limit the plugin?

 

[Jasper4S]

Could I change the poll time to seconds? What would be the potential downside to that? Is Porsche Connect going to rate limit the plugin?

one of the downsides is that I was blocked during development with a 30 sec polling setting and could n’t access my car for one hour or so. (405 error in background and the car was put in privacy mode) So there is a limit but couldn’t find the documentation about it.

btw, the API is pretty slow. Retrieving detailed info costs around 20 seconds. So if you set it to 1 minute, keep in mind that it is not as responsive as you expect it to be

 

[Jasper4S]

As a cyber person with some software assurance background, preach brother, preach!!!

As an owner of the vehicle, OP and all you devs in here doing this stuff, you guys absolutely rock! Thanks!

There was an API outage today. Is the issue now resolved?

 

[marko77]

thx for the great work!
i just have a few suggestions.

- maybe its possible to expose the battery level as an extra device (like a co2 sensor or a fan) - then it would be possible show it better. it will also be possible to do better automations.

- and it will also be great to start the preheat via a switch - so it can be started with siri

 

[Jasper4S]

@marko77 A preheat/pre-cool switch is added 5 minutes ago along with a switch for Direct Charge option. Great suggestion about the battery level. I'll try some things and get back to you!

 

[marko77]

@marko77 A preheat/pre-cool switch is added 5 minutes ago along with a switch for Direct Charge option. Great suggestion about the battery level. I'll try some things and get back to you!

i think a humidity sensor will be the best