Resilient Home Assistant Bridge for Volkswagen-Group EVs After VW Started Requiring App Attestation and Locked Out the Open Integrations
Volkswagen hardened its WeConnect/Connect API with client assertion, cryptographic proof that a request came from the official, reviewed app on a non-rooted phone, which broke the popular open-source Home Assistant integration owners used to read charge state, climate, and location and to automate cabin preconditioning. People who already pay roughly 100 dollars a year for WeConnect want programmatic access to their own car and are openly weighing a brand switch. The ask is a maintained, cross-brand (VW, Skoda, Seat, Cupra) bridge that keeps working as VW, in their words, keeps tightening the screws.
Do not sell a 'permanent' fix, because attestation will eventually win on the native-app path and a fire-and-forget HACS add-on will be dead within a quarter. The durable wedge is a hosted, fast-updating relay across all VW-group brands funded by a small subscription (which also pays for the cat-and-mouse), with an honest public changelog every time VW breaks it. The willingness to switch brands over this is the real signal of how much owners value local control.
landscape (3 existing solutions)
The open VW integrations are caught in an authentication arms race. Browser login via TLS fingerprinting still works today, but VW is signalling it will keep clamping down with full client attestation, so every community fix is provisional and there is no sanctioned local API to build on.