The EASIEST VPN for Home Assistant - Tailscale Install

i've covered how to set up remote access

to home assistant twice in the past once

using a traditional port forwarding

method and another time by setting up a

wire guard vpn both are very valuable

options but for lots of you out there

these solutions will not work because

your isp makes it impossible for you to

port forward but today i have the

solution for you and it's called tail

scale which requires no port forwarding

works on pretty much every device and

it's easy

ridiculously easy if you haven't heard

of tailscale before tailskill is billed

as a zero config vpn that just works

allowing you to easily connect servers

computers and phones in literally just a

matter of minutes you don't need any

experience creating vpns networking port

forwarding firewall rules or any of that

to get tail scale up and running and

it's all completely 100

free now as mentioned we have covered

two other methods of remote access in

the past both the port forwarding method

and a creating your own vpn using

wireguard method and both definitely

have their own pros and cons but i do

also want to mention nabu casa of course

which is an also an excellent option and

definitely one you should be considering

it's just five dollars per month

massively helps support the home

assistant project and of course gives

you simple remote access and also allows

you to easily connect to google

assistant and a-l-e-x-a even if you

don't plan to use the remote access

portion of nabucassa please consider

supporting the project getting back to

tail scale let's very briefly talk about

some of the pros and cons obviously as

mentioned already tail scale is

incredibly simple and easy to get

started with and it's also very

lightweight and fast because tail scale

is actually built on top of wire guard

which is what we used in our vpn video

finally a major advantage that tail

scale has is that it can help you to

bypass a cg nat or a double knot

scenario where port forwarding isn't an

option for you then tail scale could be

the solution that you have been waiting

for and really is a godsend for people

in that situation however if you were

hoping to do this and connect to google

home or al exa then this isn't

unfortunately the option you were

looking for but otherwise tail scale is

a very great solution let's jump right

into the install and head over into your

home assistant and into supervisor then

add-on store and find the tail scale

add-on this add-on was recently made

possible by the one and only frank so

make sure to show him some support

hit the install button and then let the

add-on install and then you're going to

want to check the start on boot watchdog

and auto update options and then hit the

start button wait for a couple of

seconds and then open the tail scale ui

at which point you will be asked to log

into tail

with either a github microsoft or google

account once you've done that and given

access then you can refresh the page and

it should say that you are now connected

next head over to login.tailscale.com

and once again sign in with the same

email account that you just used you

will then see a list of all your

currently configured devices including

our home assistant server that we just

added what you can then do is hit the

options button and then click review

route settings inside here you can then

tick the subnet route options what this

will do is allow you to access all other

ips on that subnet through the tail

scale connected device or in this case

our home assistant server all that's

left to do now is to install the client

on our device and tailscale has clients

for pretty much every device out there

but i'll go ahead and show you how to

add it to your phone go over to the app

store or play store and download the

tail scale app you will then need to log

in again with the same account as before

and then you will probably need to

accept prompts for using a vpn then you

will see a list of all your connected

devices including your home assistant

server and up at the top left will be a

button to connect or disconnect and that

is

pretty much it from here you can go

ahead and disconnect your phone from

your home wi-fi connect to the vpn and

try to access the ip address of your

home assistant server and if successful

it should open the page right up one

other option that you should be aware of

is that back on the tail scale website

you can head over into the dns section

and this is where you can configure a

dns server and for example if you use

adguard or some other dns server then

you can benefit from using that dns

server and you can configure that in the

dns section here and that is really all

there is to it if you have any other

devices you want to connect you will

want to go ahead and install the tail

scale app on your device but other than

that you are pretty much good to go it

really is that simple it's actually kind

of amazing to see how far vpn

technologies have come i've been

configuring vpns for quite a long time

now at scale but i've never seen

anything quite like this in terms of

simplicity setting up vpns of old used

to require praying to the vpn gods and

sacrificing a few of your children but

tailskill makes it so that pretty much

anyone can do it so it's actually

debating whether or not this even

required a video since it really is so

simple to do but then i thought that a

lot of you wouldn't even be aware that

this solution existed and it only

actually recently came onto the add-on

store in home assistant and so i thought

i would try and do this video and make

you all aware that this solution now

exists and is so easy to use but that's

about going to do it for this video

hopefully you find it useful any

questions comments queries concerns drop

them in the comments box down below or

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