HC3 Menu bar tool - MacOS

[jgab 2,647]

 

HC3 Menu

A macOS menu bar app to control your Fibaro Home Center 3 from the top of your screen — toggle lights, dim, open shutters, set thermostats, see sensor values, and get notifications when things change.

Highlights

• Devices grouped by Room → Type, plus a re-orderable Favorites list.
• Switches, dimmers, shutters, thermostats, sensors, scenes, alarm/profiles.
• Three notification streams: device state changes, attention (battery/dead/breach), QA errors & crashes.
• Live Debug-messages window with filter, severity picker, follow-tail, copy, and Copy QA id for the selected row.
• Configurable global hotkey to drop the menu from anywhere.
• Optional daily auto-check for new releases.
• Signed & notarized DMG; in-app crash reporter.

Requires macOS 11+ on Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4).
or macOS 11+ on Intel 64

---

Install

1. Download the latest HC3-Menu-x.y.z-arm64.dmg or HC3-Menu-x.y.z-x86_64.dmg from the
   

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   .
2. Open the DMG and drag HC3 Menu into the Applications folder.
3. Launch HC3 Menu from Applications. A house icon appears in the menu bar.

The app is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so
macOS opens it without warnings. (If you have an older unsigned 0.1.x build
installed, drag the new one over it — Gatekeeper will accept it.)

Allow Local Network access

The first time HC3 Menu tries to reach your HC3, macOS should pop up:

"HC3 Menu" would like to find devices on your local network.

Click Allow, then quit HC3 Menu (⌘Q) and launch it again — macOS only applies
the new permission to a freshly started process.

If you missed the prompt or connections fail with "No route to host" (errno 65):

• Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network and toggle
  HC3 Menu on, then quit and relaunch.

• If HC3 Menu isn't in the list, reset its privacy state in Terminal:

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  Then click Refresh in the menu so it tries to connect again and re-triggers the prompt.

Connect to your HC3

Open the menu and choose Preferences…, then on the Connection tab fill in:

• Host — your HC3's IP address (e.g. 192.168.1.50)
• User / Password — an HC3 account with API access
• PIN (optional) — required only if your HC3 enforces a PIN for certain actions

Click Save. The menu will populate within a second or two.

---

Using HC3 Menu

Click the house icon in the menu bar.

• Favorites — your starred devices, always at the top.
• Rooms — devices grouped by room, then by type within each room.
• Plus (when present on your HC3) Alarm, Profiles, Scenes, Attention, Activity, Debug messages, Diagnostics.

Inside each device submenu:

• Switches — click the row to toggle on/off.
• Dimmers — click the row to toggle on/off; Set value… opens a slider/input for 0–100 %.
• Shutters — Open / Close / Stop.
• Thermostats — set heating mode and target temperature.
• Sensors — read-only value (temperature, lux, humidity, motion…).
• ☆ Add to favorites / ★ Remove from favorites — manage favorites per device.

Notifications

Three independent notification streams, all toggleable from the Notifications submenu in the menu bar:

• Device state changes — In Preferences → Notifications, tick the Notify column for any device whose state changes you want delivered to Notification Center (e.g. front door opened, motion in garage).
• Attention — Battery-low, dead devices, sensor breach, alarm partition state changes. De-duplicated so you don't get spammed each poll cycle.
• QA errors & crashes — QuickApp error/fatal debug messages (per-QA throttled) and HC3 PluginProcessCrashedEvent events.

Favorites

Star a device with ☆ Add to favorites in any device submenu. Manage the list in Preferences → Favorites:

• Drag rows to reorder — the order is reflected in the menu bar's Favorites submenu.
• Select a row + Remove to unstar it.

Global hotkey

Open the menu from anywhere with a configurable chord (default ⌃⌥⌘H). Toggle it on from the menu (or Preferences → Shortcuts) and click Record… to set your own combo.

macOS will ask for Accessibility permission the first time — grant it under System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.

Debug log window

Activity → Debug messages → Open window opens a live log of all QuickApp debug/trace/warning/error messages with filter, severity picker, follow-tail, copy, and Copy QA id to grab the QuickApp's id from the selected row (the HC3 web UI has no stable per-QA URL, so we copy the id instead of opening a browser).

If a QuickApp itself crashes on the HC3, a one-time notification fires and the crash is recorded in the Activity list.

Crash reporter

If HC3 Menu itself hits an unhandled exception, the traceback is written to ~/.hc3menu/crash.log and a one-time notification appears. Use Show crash log from the menu to inspect it.

Check for updates

Check for updates… fetches the latest GitHub release and opens the download page if a newer version is available. Enable Auto-check daily in the same submenu to have HC3 Menu poll once per day in the background; it only surfaces UI when something newer actually exists.

---

Where settings are stored

• ~/.hc3menu/.env — host, user, password, PIN (plain text; chmod 600 recommended).
• ~/.hc3menu/config.json — favorites and notification rules.

To start fresh, quit HC3 Menu and rm -rf ~/.hc3menu.

---

Troubleshooting

Problem	Try
"No route to host" / errno 65	Allow Local Network access (see above), then quit and relaunch.
Menu shows nothing / "HC3 connection failed"	Verify host/user/password in Preferences. From Terminal: curl -u user:pass http://<host>/api/settings/info
Want to see logs	tail -f ~/Library/Logs/HC3\ Menu/*.log

---

For developers

HC3 Menu is open source (MIT) — Python + 

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 + PyObjC.
If you want to run from source, hack on it, or build your own DMG, see

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.

---

License

MIT — see 

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. Personal-use build, signed and notarized for
distribution. No warranty. Not affiliated with Fibaro.
 

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Edited June 12 by jgab

[jgab 2,647]

If someone really want to try this and is on an Intel Mac, I can create an Intel dmg too..

[jgab 2,647]

v0.1.2 his signed so no xattr command needed. Should behave like a regular MacOS app.
Only thing is that you may need to allow the app to access the network - instructions in first post.

Edited April 26 by jgab

[Dann 4]

Hi jgab@. 

I am on Intel Mac, so I would be interested for Intel dmg.

 

Looking forward to hear from you,

 

With BR,

Dan

 

[Sankotronic 2,370]

Hi @jgab,

 

I have Mac Mini M4 with macOS Tahoe 26.4.1.

After installation and first run which ended with macOS stopping the process and offering to delete it I just closed app and then open System settings.

In system settings --> Privacy & Security first I had to allow HC3 menu app to run on my system. Usually this confirmation appears under the Security part and must be confirmed with password.

After that I restarted app and I opened preferences, but it was constantly hidden behind my Firefox window that was opened on the same desktop. I had to minimize Firefox window to get to the preferences window.

When I managed to get HC3 Menu preferences window in focus I was still unable to write directly to the field, but I manage to use copy/paste to setup connection.

As for notifications, since it is just click and check that works OK.

 

After HC3 Menu preferences window is closed it doesn't want to show again when I try to open it.

It seems that it has some problems with taking focus from other apps opened to its own window.

 

Note that Apple is getting worse regarding their OS-es. Desktops are often scrambled, apps are not opened in preferred desktop or they change desktop order. Drive icons likes to drop from top to bottom of the screen etc. so above problem could be related to some more bugs introduced with this macOS.

 

[jgab 2,647]

Which version of hc3menu was it 0.2.0 or 0.1.2 ?

There should be preference dialogue improvements in 0.2.0
Also, 0.2.0 is signed and should behave better with security. Still may need to approve for network access.

Edited April 27 by jgab

[Sjakie 156]

Jan, my MacBook Pro 2019 (Intel chip)  informs me, not for your system. 

Can I expect an update?

🥶

[jgab 2,647]

37 minutes ago, Sjakie said:

Jan, my MacBook Pro 2019 (Intel chip)  informs me, not for your system. 

Can I expect an update?

🥶

Yes, later this week I will try to make an Intel version.

[Sankotronic 2,370]

6 hours ago, jgab said:

Which version of hc3menu was it 0.2.0 or 0.1.2 ?

 

Well, it was 0.1.1. Didn't really check since I get to it right from your gitHub page. Now I see that you already published two updates since I downloaded it  

No issues at the moment with the latest update 0.2.0 👍

[jgab 2,647]

54 minutes ago, Sankotronic said:

 

Well, it was 0.1.1. Didn't really check since I get to it right from your gitHub page. Now I see that you already published two updates since I downloaded it  

No issues at the moment with the latest update 0.2.0 👍

So, it's becoming a swish army knife of functions...
...you have any ideas of additional features to add?
...I'm thinking the audience is both users that just wants to monitor and interact with the HC3, but also  developers that may want to dig deeper...

[jgab 2,647]

Add an Intel version of the app on the release page. 

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[Sankotronic 2,370]

On 4/27/2026 at 4:56 PM, jgab said:

...you have any ideas of additional features to add?

 

Hi Jan,

 

Currently have no new ideas, but just few things that might be corrected.

Preferences window if Notifications, Favorites or Shortcuts tabs are selected then top text is not properly visible:

Please login or register to see this spoiler.

 

Also, is it possible that the list is actually in HTML format and uses HTML tags? Same as console on HC3?

Resizing is also welcomed because some lengthy messages are truncated and can't be read.

 

 

[jgab 2,647]

 

On 5/1/2026 at 1:24 PM, Sankotronic said:

BTW - I do not understand how "Favorites" are populated?

 

If you go down the Rooms -> submenus to a device, there is an option to toggle it as a favorite.

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/monthly_2026_05/image.png.a4361f0e3a97a3d84f8740ff59f9f43d.png" />

I will look at the other issues when I'm back on Monday.

Edited May 2 by jgab

[Dann 4]

Hi Jan,

One suggestion for improvment : remote access for HC3 in case port forward is set.

 

With BR,

Dan

 

 

[jgab 2,647]

v0.2.1 released.
- @Sankotronic's issues + some other minor cosmetic issues.

 

 

19 hours ago, Dann said:

Hi Jan,

One suggestion for improvment : remote access for HC3 in case port forward is set.

With BR,

Dan

If you have port forward so you can reach the HC3 from your laptop it should work? or did I misunderstand you?
The app just talks http to the url you configured.

Edited May 4 by jgab

[Dann 4]

Hi Jan,

 

I tried inserting in "Host" the WAN IP and on "Port" the external port as it is set on the router port forward. Inspite of that, I get Connection failed ( and of course I triple check the user name and pass ).

Do I miss something ? 

[Dann 4]

Hi Jan,

 

Additional infos from my side : I am using htpps call ( so I checked this into the preferences tab ). So on Test connection simulation I am getting : "Max retries exceeded with url: /api/settings/info (Caused by SSLError(SSLCertVerificationError(1, '[SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED] certificate verify failed: unable to get local issuer certificate (_ssl.c:1032)')))".

 

When using the https remote call from the browser ( same port forward ), I am reaching without any issue the HC3 controller.

[jgab 2,647]

Ah, I had forgot to set the ignore SSL certificate verification of the https connection.
I have released v0.2.3 where it should work. Use the hc3menu preference panel to enable https.
When you select https the port switch to 443, but you need to set the external port that you have mapped to your internal ip:443

Edited May 5 by jgab

[Dann 4]

Thanks Jan.

 

Now is working remotly for me.

I will have the chance to play with it.

 

With BR,

Dan

[jgab 2,647]

31 minutes ago, Dann said:

Thanks Jan.

 

Now is working remotly for me.

I will have the chance to play with it.

 

With BR,

Dan

Thanks for the report. This was a problem for people running https locally too.