YAHAA: Yet Another Home Assistant App (for Windows)

A two-way Windows companion app for Home Assistant. As a smart-home enthusiast who recently rebuilt my home lab without MQTT, I needed a companion app that works over the native HA WebSocket/REST APIs — and couldn't find one I liked, so I built my own.

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Requirements

Requirement	Details
OS	Windows 10 build 19041 (Version 2004, May 2020) or later
Runtime	Windows App SDK — bundled when installed via the Store or MSIX; no separate install needed
Home Assistant	Any modern HA instance accessible over HTTP/HTTPS with a Long-Lived Access Token

Tip

Installing via the Microsoft Store or winget handles all runtime dependencies automatically. For building locally, see recommended dev environment setup.

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Features

• System theme support — follows Windows light/dark mode and accent color
• Sensor reporting — publishes PC state to Home Assistant as binary sensors:
  • Active — whether the PC has been used within the configured idle threshold
  • Camera — whether the webcam is currently in use
  • Microphone — whether the microphone is currently in use
  • Camera or Microphone — combined sensor (useful for detecting calls/meetings)
• Trigger automations — fire HA webhook automations directly from the app dashboard
• Script bridge — expose .ps1 / .bat files in the Scripts folder as Home Assistant input_button helpers; press the button in HA to run the script on your PC
• Optional location tracking — report device location to Home Assistant
• Guided setup wizard — connect to your HA instance with a step-by-step flow; credentials are stored securely with Windows DPAPI

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Installation

The easiest way to install is via the Microsoft Store or winget:

winget install YAHAA

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Build & Run Locally

Tip

The easiest path is to open the solution in Visual Studio and use Debug or Deploy from there. If you haven't set up a Windows development environment before, follow the Windows app development setup guide to install Visual Studio, the Windows App SDK workload, and .NET in one step.

Important

Enable Developer Mode in Windows Settings before installing a locally built MSIX.

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/CodeNeedsCoffee/YAHAA.git
cd YAHAA

2. Build a package

dotnet publish -p:PublishProfile=win-x64 -c Release

3. Install the MSIX

Navigate to the publish output folder and run the generated .msix installer.

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Building for the Microsoft Store

Note

Contributors don't need to do this. Store submission is handled by the maintainer as part of the release process — see Contributing below. These instructions are here for reference only.

Important

Before building for Store submission, you must reserve your app name in Partner Center and update Package.appxmanifest with the identity values from App management → Product identity:

<Identity Name="<PackageIdentityName>"
          Publisher="<PublisherDN>"
          Version="1.0.0.0" />
<Properties>
  <PublisherDisplayName>Your Display Name</PublisherDisplayName>
</Properties>

1. Clone the repo (if not already done)

git clone https://github.com/CodeNeedsCoffee/YAHAA.git
cd YAHAA

2. Build the Store upload package

msbuild YAHAA\YAHAA.csproj `
  /p:Configuration=Release `
  /p:Platform=x64 `
  /p:PublishProfile=store-upload `
  /p:AppxBundle=Always `
  /p:AppxBundlePlatforms="x86|x64|arm64" `
  /t:Publish

This uses the store-upload publish profile, which:

• Disables local code-signing (Partner Center signs the package)
• Bundles all three architectures (x86, x64, ARM64) into a single file
• Outputs a .msixupload file ready for Partner Center

3. Locate the output

The .msixupload file will be in:

YAHAA\bin\Release\store-upload\

4. Submit to Partner Center

Upload the .msixupload file under Packages in your Partner Center submission.

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please follow the branch workflow below so releases stay coordinated with the Microsoft Store submission process.

Branch workflow

feature/* or fix/*  →  beta  →  main

1. Open a PR into beta — all feature branches and fixes target beta, not main. This is where code review and testing happen.
2. beta → main PR — once a set of changes is ready to ship, a PR from beta into main is opened. This PR is not merged until Microsoft finishes processing the Store submission and the build is live.
3. Store upload — the maintainer handles building the .msixupload and submitting it to Partner Center after the beta → main PR is opened. You don't need to do anything here.

Important

Do not target main directly in your PRs. Changes merged to main represent what is live in the Microsoft Store.

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Feedback & Issues

Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.