Release Notes

A changelog of what's new, improved, and fixed in each release of HomeBe·at.

v1.0 — Initial Release

The first public release of HomeBe·at for macOS and Apple TV.

Multi-protocol support — WebRTC, MJPEG, and HLS with automatic fallback. The app detects the best available protocol for each camera and switches seamlessly if one fails.
WebRTC streaming with sub-second latency via go2rtc (built into Home Assistant since 2024.11).
Stream quality control — Cycle between Low (2.5 Mbps), Medium (5 Mbps), and High (8 Mbps) quality for WebRTC streams. Separate quality settings for local and remote networks.
Custom cameras — Add RTSP, RTMP, or HLS streams that aren't managed by Home Assistant, with PTZ support for compatible cameras.
Per-camera audio with mute/unmute toggle and audio output device selection.
Digital zoom and pan on all stream types.

Menu bar integration — Lives in your menu bar with no Dock icon. Click to see your cameras, click a camera for a live preview popover.
Multi-camera viewports — Floating windows with customizable grid layouts (1×1, 2×2, 3×3, etc.). Create multiple viewport windows with different camera arrangements.
Keyboard shortcuts — Full keyboard control for viewports (1–9 to expand cameras, F for fullscreen, M for mute, S for screenshot, arrow keys for PTZ/pan, +/- for zoom).
Global shortcuts — System-wide hotkeys to open a camera viewport or trigger an alert, configurable per camera.
Screenshots — Save camera snapshots to a folder of your choice.
Launch at login — Start HomeBe·at automatically with macOS.

Native tvOS app — Full-screen camera grid optimized for the big screen and Siri Remote.
Shared authentication — Credentials sync automatically via iCloud Keychain from your Mac.
Top Shelf Extension — Live camera snapshot previews on the Apple TV home screen.

Real-time alerts — Instant popover notifications for motion, person, vehicle, pet, and sound detection events from Home Assistant binary sensors.
Configurable alert position — Display alerts below the menu bar or in any screen corner.
Alert size options — Small, Medium, or Large preview popovers.
Auto-dismiss — Alerts close automatically 10 seconds after the last detection event.
Mute alerts — Temporarily silence notifications with a "mute until" time setting.
Screen sharing awareness — Optionally suppress alerts while sharing your screen.

Pan, tilt, and zoom for compatible cameras with automatic detection via Home Assistant device entities.
ONVIF and Eufy support via Home Assistant integration services.
Directional pad — Ring-shaped N/E/S/W control with +/- zoom buttons.
Keyboard PTZ — Arrow keys and +/- control PTZ when available, fall back to digital zoom otherwise.

OAuth 2.0 — Sign in via browser with automatic token refresh.
Long-Lived Access Tokens — Alternative auth for environments without browser access (tvOS).
Local/remote URL switching — Automatically detect and switch between local and remote Home Assistant URLs.
Automatic reconnection — Exponential backoff reconnection on network loss with instant recovery when the network returns.

Free — Up to 2 cameras with all features (streaming, alerts, PTZ, all protocols).
Pro — One-time purchase for unlimited cameras and multi-camera viewports. Shared across macOS and Apple TV via Family Sharing.

Available in 11 languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Slovak, Japanese, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Italian, and Norwegian Bokmål.