SMART Sniffer
github.com
What it is
SMART Sniffer monitors disk health and sends warnings to Home Assistant. A lightweight Go agent runs on each monitored machine, where every drive appears as its own Home Assistant device. Its Attention Needed sensor covers ATA, SATA, NVMe, and SAS drives, returning NO, MAYBE, YES, or UNSUPPORTED. When a drive’s health changes, persistent Home Assistant notifications can appear automatically, with options to escalate, de-escalate, or dismiss them automatically. Agents advertise on the local network through mDNS/Zeroconf, allowing Home Assistant to find them without manual IP entry. Filesystem monitoring is optional; for configured mountpoints, it reports total, used, and available bytes plus usage percentage. An integration service call can provide SMART data and assessments for use with Google AI, ChatGPT, Claude, or Ollama. The agent also exposes HTTP endpoints for health, drive summaries, individual SMART data, and filesystem usage. SMART Sniffer is free and MIT-licensed. It requires smartmontools 7.0 or newer for JSON output; some USB enclosures that block SMART passthrough are reported as unsupported with unknown health.
Spec sheet
- What it does
- SMART Sniffer combines a Home Assistant custom integration with a Go agent that reads S.M.A.R.T. data and reports drive health.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Purpose
- SMART Sniffer monitors disk health and reports early warning signs to Home Assistant.Read 3 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Platforms
- Published binaries target Linux amd64/arm64, macOS Intel/Apple Silicon and Windows amd64.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- API
- The agent exposes HTTP endpoints including /api/health, /api/filesystems and /api/pools, and accepts configurable port, scan interval and token settings.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Integrations
- The integration provides a service call with SMART data and assessments that can be passed to Google AI, ChatGPT, Claude, or Ollama.Read 3 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Security
- Bearer-token authentication between the agent and integration is optional, and binary downloads are checked with SHA256 checksums.Read 3 Oct 2026 · github.com
- AI integration
- The smart_sniffer.get_drive_data service returns cached SMART data, health assessments, filesystem usage and agent metadata for use with Google AI, ChatGPT, Claude or Ollama.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- App component
- The separate Home Assistant OS app displays local and remote drives in a web-based Control Center and can feed the same integration entities, alerts and history.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Authentication
- Bearer-token authentication is optional; when configured, agent requests must include an Authorization header, while unconfigured agents serve data without authentication.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Auto-discovery
- Agents advertise over mDNS/Zeroconf so Home Assistant can discover them without manually entering an IP address.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Discovery
- Agents advertise over local-network mDNS/Zeroconf so Home Assistant can discover them without manual IP entry.Read 3 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Disk usage
- Optional filesystem monitoring reports total, used and available space plus percentage for selected mountpoints through an API endpoint.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Docker deployment
- An independent Docker image documents amd64 and arm64 support, host networking for mDNS, configurable port 9099, 60-second scans and optional tokens.Read 14 Oct 2026 · hub.docker.com
- Docker security
- The community Docker image requests SYS_RAWIO for SATA/SAS and SYS_ADMIN for NVMe instead of running fully privileged.Read 14 Oct 2026 · hub.docker.com
- Documentation depth
- Documentation includes configuration examples, discovery troubleshooting, sensor definitions, attention logic, changelog entries and contribution guidance.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Download security
- Installers verify downloaded binaries with SHA256 checksums.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Drive coverage
- Its Attention Needed sensor monitors ATA, SATA, NVMe, and SAS drives and reports NO, MAYBE, YES, or UNSUPPORTED.Read 3 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Drive standby
- Standby mode can avoid waking sleeping drives and serves cached readings with a data_as_of timestamp.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Failure classification
- The Attention Needed sensor classifies drives as NO, MAYBE, YES, or UNSUPPORTED using indicators such as reallocated, pending and uncorrectable errors.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Installation
- Linux and macOS use install.sh, Windows uses install.ps1, and Home Assistant installation is available through HACS or manual component copying.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Licence
- The repository is published under the MIT License.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- License and maker
- The repository identifies the project as MIT-licensed and built by DAB-LABS.Read 3 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Limit: macOS telemetry
- Device Statistics is always disabled on macOS because the operating system does not permit reading that log.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Limit: network discovery
- mDNS discovery is link-local, so agents on different VLANs require an mDNS reflector.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Limit: USB passthrough
- USB enclosures that block SMART passthrough are reported as unsupported or unknown because the limitation is in the bridge hardware.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Maker legal identity
- DAB LABS LTD, company number 16895678, trades as Dab Labs according to its privacy policy.Read 14 Oct 2026 · dablabs.ai
- Maker LinkedIn profile
- LinkedIn describes Dab-Labs as a design consultancy with 11–50 employees, founded in 2022.Read 14 Oct 2026 · linkedin.com
- Multi-machine monitoring
- A separate lightweight agent can run on every monitored machine, with each drive represented as its own Home Assistant device.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Multiple machines
- A lightweight Go agent runs on each monitored machine, with each drive appearing as its own Home Assistant device.Read 3 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Notifications
- Persistent Home Assistant notifications are generated automatically when drive health changes, with escalation and automatic dismissal after recovery.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Praise: community fixes
- Home Assistant Community coverage describes four stability patches driven by user reports and says the reported issues were confirmed fixed.Read 14 Oct 2026 · community.home-assistant.io
- Praise: NAS coverage
- The Home Assistant Community announcement highlights automatic SCSI-to-ATA detection for QNAP, smartctl path resolution for Synology and Unraid, and hardware RAID overrides.Read 14 Oct 2026 · community.home-assistant.io
- Rating on GitHub
- 75 out of 5 stars from 75 repository starsRead 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Rating on GitHub App repository
- 24 out of 5 stars from 24 repository starsRead 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Recent release
- Version 0.8.2 was published on 12 October 2026 and mainly updated the mock agent and documentation.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Requirements
- The agent requires smartmontools 7.0 or newer for JSON output support.Read 3 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Security reporting
- The security policy requests vulnerability reports by email and says the maintainer aims to acknowledge them within 48 hours and provide a fix or mitigation plan within 7 days for confirmed vulnerabilities.Read 3 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Supported drive protocols
- The integration supports ATA/SATA, NVMe and basic SAS/SCSI monitoring, while full SCSI attribute parsing remains future work.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- System requirement
- Building the agent requires Go 1.22 or newer, and runtime SMART collection depends on smartmontools.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- USB limitation
- USB enclosures that block SMART passthrough are marked UNSUPPORTED with Health: Unknown.Read 3 Oct 2026 · github.com
- Write telemetry
- Version 0.8.0 added lifetime data-written sensors using SATA Device Statistics logs and NVMe health logs, with long-term statistics.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
- ZFS monitoring
- Version 0.8.1 added ZFS pool devices with pool state, error counts, scrub information and notifications naming problematic disks.Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
Plans and prices
Open source Free Home Assistant integration · Go agent · self-hosted deployment Read 14 Oct 2026 · github.com
SMART Sniffer Free MIT-licensed Home Assistant integration and Go agent Read 3 Oct 2026 · github.com
Strong points and limits
Strong points
- Monitors ATA, SATA, NVMe, and SAS drives.
- Automatic notifications can escalate or dismiss.
- Discovers agents over local-network mDNS/Zeroconf.
- Optional filesystem monitoring reports usage details.
- Free and MIT-licensed.
Limits
- Requires smartmontools 7.0 or newer.
- Some USB enclosures report unsupported, unknown health.
- Bearer-token authentication is optional, not required.
Who it suits
SMART Sniffer suits Home Assistant users who want disk-health warnings across Linux, macOS, or Windows machines. It can also help users track configured filesystem usage or pass drive assessments to supported AI services.
Verdict
SMART Sniffer combines drive-health alerts with optional filesystem reporting for Home Assistant. Check smartmontools requirements and USB passthrough support before relying on its drive assessments.
Where Specifiction places it
- Disk Health Monitoring Software#5 of 308.3
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