homebridge-praycalc

Homebridge plugin that exposes Islamic prayer times as HomeKit contact sensors — one per daily prayer (Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, Isha). Each sensor reads Open while that prayer's time window is active, and Closed otherwise, so it can drive HomeKit automations (dim the lights, play a sound, send a notification) without any PrayCalc account or login.

Powered by the public PrayCalc Smart API — no API key required.

Installation

Homebridge Config UI X (recommended)

1. Search for "PrayCalc" in the Plugins tab of Homebridge Config UI X.
2. Click Install.
3. Configure via the settings form (see Configuration below) — no manual JSON editing needed.

Manual

npm install -g homebridge-praycalc

Then add an accessory block to your Homebridge config.json (see below).

Configuration

{
  "accessories": [
    {
      "accessory": "PrayCalcPrayers",
      "name": "Prayer Times",
      "latitude": 40.7128,
      "longitude": -74.0060,
      "method": "isna",
      "madhab": "shafii",
      "windowMinutes": 30
    }
  ]
}

| Field | Type | Required | Default | Description | |---|---|---|---|---| | accessory | string | yes | — | Must be exactly "PrayCalcPrayers" | | name | string | yes | — | Accessory name shown in the Home app | | latitude | number | yes | — | Decimal degrees, north positive | | longitude | number | yes | — | Decimal degrees, east positive | | method | string | no | isna | One of isna, mwl, egypt, umm_al_qura, tehran, karachi | | madhab | string | no | shafii | One of shafii (standard) or hanafi (double-shadow Asr) | | windowMinutes | number | no | 30 | Minutes after a prayer's start time the sensor stays Open |

Full config UI schema is in config.schema.json for Config UI X users.

What you get

Five ContactSensor HomeKit services, one per prayer:

• Fajr Prayer
• Dhuhr Prayer
• Asr Prayer
• Maghrib Prayer
• Isha Prayer

Each reads Contact Not Detected (Open, i.e. the automation-friendly "triggered" state) during its active window, and Contact Detected (Closed) the rest of the day.

Example automation

In the Home app: Automation > When a sensor detects something > pick e.g. "Fajr Prayer" > Opens > choose a scene (dim lights, play a sound via a HomeKit speaker, etc.).

How it works

On startup and every hour, the plugin fetches today's prayer times from https://api.praycalc.com/api/v1/public/times for the configured latitude/longitude, method, and madhab. Sensor states are recomputed every minute from the cached times — no per-minute network call.

Requirements

• Homebridge >=1.6.0
• Node.js >=20.0.0 (the plugin uses the native fetch API)

Troubleshooting

Sensors never show Open: confirm latitude/longitude are correct and check the Homebridge log for homebridge-praycalc: Initial fetch failed — this usually means the device running Homebridge has no outbound internet access to api.praycalc.com.

Wrong prayer times: double check method and madhab match your usual calculation preference; these affect Fajr/Isha (method) and Asr (madhab) timing.

See also

• PrayCalc for Home Assistant — HACS integration with more sensor detail (countdowns, Qibla, Hijri date)
• PrayCalc Smart Home wiki

License

MIT — see the repository LICENSE.