Enterprise on the outside, ESP32 on the inside.
I know... it's ugly. 😅
I wanted to integrate devices that the UniFi Door Hub doesn't support natively, so I attached an ESP32 running ESPHome to it.
Current integrations:
- Nuki door opener
- Ring contact sensors
- Home Assistant automation
- G6 Pro Entry as the main door station
The ESP32 basically bridges everything into the UniFi ecosystem. The wiring definitely isn't pretty, and it's more of a proof of concept than a finished product, but it's been surprisingly reliable.
Future plans:
- Alarm system integration
- More Home Assistant entities
- Clean up the hardware (maybe 😄)
If it's stupid but it works... is it really stupid?
Edit what does it do xD:
So I have a UniFi Door Hub at my front door but all my actual smart home stuff lives in Home Assistant. The problem: UniFi doesn't talk to HA, and HA doesn't talk to UniFi. They're completely separate ecosystems.
So I flashed a $4 ESP32 with ESPHome and turned it into a dumb but effective translator sitting between the two - currently doing:
Thing 1 – Door sensor mirror:
My Ring door sensor reports open/closed to HA. The ESP32 reads that state and physically simulates a door contact sensor for the UniFi Hub by pulling a GPIO pin high or low. UniFi thinks it has a real wired door sensor. It doesn't. It's just a microcontroller lying to it.
Thing 2 – Lock trigger:
When I hit "Unlock" in the UniFi app, the Hub closes a dry contact output for a second. The ESP32 detects that on another GPIO pin and immediately calls lock.open on my Nuki Smart Lock through the HA API. UniFi thinks it's controlling a wired electric strike. It's actually just poking Home Assistant to tell Nuki to unlatch.
The result:
UniFi Access works as a proper access control system with real door state and unlock functionality, while all the actual logic and hardware stays in HA where I want it.
From the outside it looks like a proper wired electric strike setup — but it's just the Nuki doing its thing. A real electric lock installation isn't even an option in my situation, so this gets me all the same benefits: face recognition auto-unlock, pressing unlock mid-call when someone rings the bell through the UniFi Access app, the whole deal.