Reaching your system from anywhere
Remote access lets you open your Sensa screens from a phone or a browser away from the vehicle, on a web address of your own. Check the battery from the office, turn the heating on before you get there, see why an alarm fired while you were out.
It is off until you switch it on, and it stays off through restarts and updates until you say otherwise.
This page covers a system Sensa supplied. On an Enthusiast or DIY install you keep Home Assistant admin, so remote access is yours to set up in whichever way you prefer.
Switching it on
Open the Sensa Settings panel, then the System tab. Under Remote Access, switch on Reach this system over the internet.
Once it is on, an Address row appears with your system's own web address. Open that address in any browser and you get your own Home Assistant login page, and you sign in exactly as you do on the tablet in the van.
The address belongs to your system and does not change. Switching remote access off and on again gives you back the same one, so a bookmark keeps working, and so does the address written down in your paperwork.
If you have just switched it on and the address is not there yet, the panel says Setting up. It appears once your system has checked in.
Your system fills the address in for you
The address is a long string of letters and numbers, and typing it into a phone is exactly the sort of job this product exists to avoid. So your system writes it into Home Assistant itself, under Settings, System, Network, as the address to share with other devices. The Home Assistant app on your phone picks it up from there.
Two things follow, and both are deliberate:
- If you have put your own web address there, Sensa leaves it alone. Your system only ever changes an empty field, or one it filled in itself. Pointing your own domain at the van is a decision you made, and nothing here will quietly undo it.
- It is taken back out when remote access goes. An address that no longer works is worse than no address, because other things on your system hand it out.
Why it is off to begin with
While remote access is on, your Home Assistant login page can be reached from the internet. That is exactly what makes it useful, and it is also the whole of the risk: your password is the only thing between the internet and your van.
So the door does not exist unless you want it to, and two things follow from that.
- Give every login a password only you know. Your system will not open remote access at all until you have, which is the next section.
- Switch it off when you are not using it. It costs nothing to turn back on, and the address is waiting for you when you do.
Not one you use anywhere else, and not something guessable from your van or your name. A password manager is worth the ten minutes it takes to set up.
It will not open until every login has its own password
A unit we supply arrives with its logins set to a starting password, so you can get in on the first day. That is reasonable while the system can only be reached on your van's own network. It stops being reasonable the moment the same system answers to the whole internet.
So your system holds remote access shut until those starting passwords have been changed, and says so:
Waiting until every login has its own password. Set them under Passwords and this opens by itself.
Change them on the same Settings, System tab, under Passwords. There is nothing else to do and nothing to press afterwards: remote access opens on its own at the next check-in.
When it will not open
The panel tells you which of these is holding it, rather than leaving you looking at a switch that appears to do nothing.
| What the panel says | What it means |
|---|---|
| Waiting until every login has its own password | Change them under Passwords, as above |
| Connecting | Your system is allowed remote access and is waiting to be given its connection, which needs the internet |
| This system cannot reach the internet | Nothing is wrong. It comes on by itself once the van is back online |
| Your support plan has ended | Remote access is part of your support plan. It reopens when the plan is renewed |
You can switch remote access on in a place with no signal. Your system takes the setting and opens the connection once it next has internet, so arming it the night before you set off does what you would expect.
If your licence or trial has ended and your system is in read-only mode, the switch refuses and says so. Renewing switches it back on. Sensa Support can still reach your system if you ask for help, because a system in read-only is exactly the sort somebody needs a hand with.
While Sensa Support is connected
If you have let Sensa Support in, the connection is held open for that session even when your own switch is off, because support reaches your system the same way you do. The panel says so plainly:
Open at the moment because you have let Sensa Support in. Your own switch is off, so it closes again when that session ends.
Your own setting is not changed by this, and nothing stays open afterwards.
The same is true when your support plan has ended or your system has gone read-only. Your own remote access stops, and letting Sensa Support in still works, because those are exactly the systems somebody needs a hand with. See Remote support.
What it does not do
- It does not give Sensa access. That is a separate switch, described under remote support, and switching remote access on does not turn it on.
- It does not work with no internet at the van. See Working offline.
- It is not the mySensa app. mySensa shows you your vehicle and your account. Your dashboards, and anything that switches something on, are reached either on the van's own Wi-Fi or through this.