In addition to port forwarding, Home Assistant can also be accessed remotely via a cloud provider. A cloud flare tunnel service can also be used as a low-cost alternative to the "Home Assistant Cloud", which is the topic of this article.

Here is another overview of the possible access options:

Remote access to Home Assistant: options and recommendations

• Home Assistant Cloud: €7.5 / month
• VPN access
• HAOS installation
  • DynDNS provider (e.g. DuckDNS) or any DNS entry and port forwarding (free= recommended variant)
  • CloudFlare tunnel: Requires a paid domain (approx. 7- 20€ per year) ( this article: recommended if port forwarding is not possible)
• Home Assistant Core 
  • Docker and reverse proxy with port forwarding (recommended for operating Home Assistant Core as a pure Docker container)
  • Docker and CloudFlare tunnel and reverse proxy

1) Prerequisite for Cloudflare: own domain

The Cloudflare Tunnel Server requires a domain for access, which in the simplest case can be registered directly with Cloudflare:

2) Install add-on

The easiest way to add the Cloudflared add-on is via the following link:

Provider: https://github.com/brenner-tobias/addon-cloudflared

3) Add-on configuration

The configuration starts by adding the previously registered domain:

4) Home Assistant - Proxy configuration

To allow access from an external proxy - such as the Cloudflare tunnel - we need to make the following change in the Home Assistant configuration:

5) Cloudflare - Tunnel configuration

Finally, the actual tunnel must be set up, which can be done conveniently by calling up a link from the logging:

Remote Access

After successful setup, Home Assistant can be called up via the domain registered in step 1

Conclusion: Secure connection for Home Assistant

The Cloudflare Tunnel provides an effective solution for accessing Home Assistant, especially when port forwarding is not an option. A dedicated domain name in combination with the tunnel enables secure and affordable remote access.