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The original was posted on /r/homeassistant by /u/mrruss3ll on 2026-05-18 05:51:39+00:00.
I got tired of handing guests my phone every time they wanted to turn a light on, so I built a proper guest access system for Home Assistant.
Gatekeeper HA is a custom integration that lets you generate time-limited, scoped guest links. No app install for guests, no HA account creation, no handing over your phone.
The workflow is: open the Gatekeeper card on your dashboard, tap "+ New Token", pick which entities the guest can touch (light., lock.front_door, climate., whatever you want), set how long the link should live, and it spits out a unique URL. A QR code renders right there on the card. Laminate it for the guest room, text it to them, whatever works.
Guest opens the link on their phone. They get a stripped-down page with exactly the controls you allowed. That's it. No login, no app, no account. The link expires after X hours or X uses. You can kill it early from the same card.
There's also a guest mode toggle that disables your automations (alarm scheduling, away mode, night lights), snaps a restore point, and revokes every active token when you flip it back off.
Why I didn't use the existing workarounds:
HA-Pass runs as a separate proxy app you need to maintain. Manual HA user accounts work but you're setting up credentials for every guest. Template-switch "guest mode" toggles exist but don't handle scoped tokens or automated cleanup.
This is a standard custom_component. It spawns its own lightweight HTTP server for the guest page, plus a Lovelace card for administration. One install, no Docker containers.
Tech stack: Python asyncio + aiohttp for the guest proxy, LitElement for the card, bcrypt for token hashing. QR codes render locally in the browser — no calls to an external API. About 2000 lines.
Code is on GitHub if you want to kick the tyres:
https://github.com/rusty4444/gatekeeper-ha
Feedback, bug reports, and feature ideas welcome. If there's enough interest I'll submit it to HACS.