Customer Ratings & Reviews

I received my Homey Pro, read all the directions and downloaded the APP. It took me three days to get the APP to work. I registered and it just froze. Couldn’t scroll up or down and there was no button to push. I thought maybe they were updating the APP. Next day it was the same thing. The third day I was ready to give up. This happened on my iPad Pro and my iPhone13. Finally I want into my settings and set my print to the smallest available and tried again. It worked. Now I had the APP set up. Nowhere on the box or in the directions did it specify that I needed the smallest print available. I now had my Homey Pro connected to the APP via Bluetooth. I couldn’t wait to get rid of all the “bridges” I was using and only use one. Homey Pro needed to update and that took awhile. I was pleased that it could use my 5G AT&T fiber net. I began to set up my areas and scenes. It was picking up my Phillip Hue lights and strips easily but failed to work with my Maytag washer. I’m finding that during night my lights lose continuous connection. I’m disappointed. It is a great concept if it would only work correctly. I’m going back to my previous bridges.

Transitioning from my old Vera system to the Homey Pro has been a revelation. Its speed outpaces my previous setup significantly, communicating with devices super quickly where I used to deal with delays. While it may not support as many generic Z-Wave devices as the Vera, the apps store does provide excellent documentation on supported devices and I've just ended up swapping out my devices (zooz is great). What truly sets the Homey Pro apart is its remarkable flexibility. Whether integrating Z-Wave devices or other smart home tech, it adapts seamlessly to adding wifi or cloud solutions like nest, etc.. The interface is intuitive and advanced, which really is more for experienced technical people. Moreover, the Homey Pro's flow feature allows for incredibly flexible series of Z-Wave actions, enhancing automation possibilities. I've created some crazy flows and I'd love for Homey to publish more example to help the community get ideas for automation. When you stare at an empty flow, sometimes you're like, where do I start! haha. In essence, the Homey Pro offers unparalleled speed, flexibility, and proactive support, making it an excellent choice for enhancing any smart home setup. It was expensive, but worth it for me.

Great product, but my not work for everyone. Pros- The homey software is fantasic and the heardware looks great. The community seems to be active. Cons- It doesn't support everything that I have, but it may for you. No support for live video for my google nest cameras. Overall- The price is a little high since you can get other solutions out there cheaper in a form of a hub to start. This has the best flow options i have seen so far. Unfortunately, it seems to support Europe more the the United States.

Meh.. seems alright and seems to have a lot of potential. The price is very high for what it can currently delivery, but I'm hoping the potential can be unlocked.. 3 stars from me, for now...

I recently purchased the Homey Pro 2023, and I must say, it has completely transformed my smart home experience! One of the standout features of this device is its ability to seamlessly connect all of my smart devices into one central hub. This has brought an unparalleled level of convenience and efficiency to my daily routine, making the management of my smart home gadgets a breeze. The advanced flows feature of the Homey Pro is nothing short of impressive. It allows me to create powerful, custom automations that perfectly align with my lifestyle. The automations work like magic, adding a touch of sophistication to my home. Additionally, I found the setup and overall user interface to be incredibly user-friendly, making it accessible even for those who aren't tech-savvy. Overall, the Homey Pro 2023 is a game-changer for anyone looking to streamline and enhance their smart home setup.

Love my homey pro, integrates my various smart home items seamlessly.

Not compatible with my 5yo stuff. Probally works great for newer apps.

The Flows (routines) are amazing, but the integration with other devices is not so good, it lacks on the supported devices. In the future, this can be a powerful Hub but now it is not.

It is a great hub to connect all of your home security and automation too.

Anyone setting up a smart home knows the struggle of getting all your devices to "play nice" together. Light bulbs from one brand don't always work in sync with light strips from another, and controlling them all can be a headache. Homey looks to solve that with their Homey Pro Smart Home Hub. It promises one hub and one app to control your entire smart home -- does it deliver? The Homey Pro arrives simply packed in one box (albeit with a lot of plastic packaging) with a USB-C cable and charger as the only included accessories. That's all you need to get started as the Homey Pro connects over wifi. This is a great feature for anyone who might not have a spare ethernet port on their router or who needs to locate the Homey Pro in a specific area. The flexibility is appreciated. The Homey itself is a round puck, a little larger than it might look in pictures but still decently compact. It has a little weight to it and a nice nonslip base. I appreciate the standard USB-C connection as this gives you the flexibility to use any cable/power supply combo that meets the energy requirements of the Homey -- long, short, you name it. The only other feature of the device itself is an LED light ring around the bottom that pulses and changes color during setup and use. It's a sleek device overall. Initial setup is straightforward. Simply plug in your Homey Pro, download the Homey app and follow the instructions. The process does require creating a Homey account and my device needed a firmware update as well. After a series of reboots the Homey Pro was ready to go. The Homey app is simple and fairly well-organized. Like most smart home platforms it allows you to add devices, group them into zones and put together automations, which Homey calls Flows. Homey includes just about every smart home standard (Matter, Thread, Zigbee, Wifi, Bluetooth, infrared, you name it) and is designed to talk to devices directly or integrate with other platforms via Apps. The majority of my smart home devices are smart light bulbs from IKEA's Tradfri line. I was pleased to see IKEA has an official Homey app so I assumed integration would be a cinch. I went to add devices, searched for the IKEA app and quickly discovered that adding my Tradfri bulbs would actually require factory resetting each bulb and adding it manually via Zigbee to the Homey Pro -- effectively removing the bulbs from the IKEA Dirigera hub I have and forcing me to start from scratch. That's certainly not the easy, breezy smart home integration Homey promises, and really caught me off guard. I decided to try some other smart devices and see how Homey handled those. I turned first to my Ecobee thermostat and was pleased to find an official Homey app. A quick login and my Ecobee showed up in the Homey app. I could see the current temperature, target temperature and just about every metric visible in the Ecobee app itself, which is great. Unfortunately, the Homey app consistently shows the wrong indoor and target temperatures, even after deleting and re-adding my thermostat to the Homey Pro. According to Homey I am always cooling to a temperature of 65 degrees, a temperature I've never set anywhere. I'm not sure if this is a Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion issue of some sort (the Homey was designed in the Netherlands) but I have been unable to correct it. Next I tried to connect my three TP-Link Tapo switches through the official Tapo app, and once again ran into trouble: only one of my switch model numbers was listed in the app. I could find no way to add the two unlisted switches through the Tapo app within Homey. This became the theme of adding the rest of my smart home devices. I could connect to both of my Nanoleaf devices, but only one showed any correct energy usage metrics; I could connect my smart air purifiers through a community member's Homey app, but they were completely unresponsive; I added my Sonos speakers through the official Sonos app, but Homey told me I was listening to the same Kanye West song in the living room no matter what audio was playing. I finally figured out how to add my IKEA smart bulbs -- I had to turn on the Matter bridge functionality of the Dirigera hub and connect it to Homey via Matter -- but only the smart bulbs showed up in Homey; none of the many IKEA remotes and buttons I have throughout my home were visible in Homey. I was finally able to add my two unlisted Tapo light switches to Homey via Matter, but it would have been nice to connect them through Tapo's Homey App rather than having to Google how to enable Matter pairing from Apple Home. The Homey Pro's biggest selling point is one hub controlling everything in your smart home, but that control still largely depends on support from the manufacturer of each device, which I quickly discovered is far from universal. While Homey includes Zigbee, Matter and Thread capabilities, having to factory reset all my smart bulbs to connect them to the Homey Pro is not only time-consuming, but would break all of the smart home integrations and routines I have set up in other systems like HomeKit and Alexa. If you're starting from scratch this may not be much of an issue, but if you have existing smart home systems the Homey Pro may not integrate well, if at all, into your current setup. After getting most of my devices connected one way or another I decided to try out a Homey "Flow," or automation. Creating a Flow is quick and easy, and Homey allows for conditional formatting, which is not the case for every smart home platform. I was able to set up a Flow that would turn certain lights on and off when my robot vacuum started and stopped, but only when I wasn't home. While setup was easy, the Flow failed to run the first time I left home. After some digging I discovered Homey hadn't requested location access for my phone during setup and so didn't know I had left the house. Accessing the Homey app after I'd left for the day prompted me to allow location access and the Flow then ran the next time I left. However, coming home unexpectedly during a different day led me to discover the Flow did not turn off the lights in the way I had set up. Whether that's an error on my part or an issue with Homey I haven't yet determined. I had high hopes for the Homey Pro. It has all the latest smart home protocols, powerfully simple automation controls, and a clean, organized user interface. Even as an experienced smart home user I encountered errors with nearly every integration I tried, some of which are still unresolved. Like pretty much any smart home platform Homey is still beholden to device manufacturers to integrate with their platform, and even with standards like Matter the integrations still aren't as seamless as Homey would like you to believe. I expected more from Homey, especially at their price point, but so far I have been let down. If you're building a smart home from scratch and are looking for well-made hub with all the latest protocols, Homey might fit the bill: just make sure you do your research on compatibility first. If you have a robust smart home going already I don't think you'll see much, if any, added benefit from Homey, especially if your devices are already connected to one of the major smart home platforms.

In case you are not sure about this device, it allows you to connect various smart devices around your house and control them through various scripts you create. The way it works is mostly a hit, but I did run into some misses. One thing worth mentioning was that instructions on how to set this up and use it are non-existent. There are videos on YouTube about it and you will need them. The first thing you do is place the device somewhere local in the house on a table. It can control some devices over infrared so if you plan to use that feature, it needs to be placed in the same room. The infrared output is on the top of the device so you don’t want it on a shelf where it can be blocked. Next, you download the Homey app on your phone and go through the steps of connecting it to your network, creating a Homey account, and updating the firmware. I did run into some problems here. At first, the phone couldn’t find the device. I tried again and it found it. Then in the middle of updating the firmware, it failed. I had to restart everything a second time and now it worked. I finally got past the first step in setting it up. Next you set up your house. You select how many floors are in your house and what rooms are on each floor. This is needed so that you can place the different devices in different rooms to help organize and differentiate them from each other. A tree is created starting with the house, then the floor under that. Then the room under the floor and finally the devices in that room. This is a great way of organizing everything and really helps when it comes to writing scripts interacting with specific devices. The Homey can connect to different types of devices over a bunch of different protocols by installing “apps” on the device for the specific device you want to connect. They claim it has apps for 10,000 devices. I don’t know about that, but there seems to be an endless amount of them. I looked for all my smart devices in my house and everything was available except for my Sony soundbar, but I can’t really think of a script that would use that anyway. There were other soundbars and speakers listed so there must be some use for them. Connecting the devices was challenging in some cases. Some devices connected just fine while others didn’t initially. I did have trouble connecting Matter plugs which should be supported. After a couple of tries, they finally connected. I also tried connecting some Zigbee devices and that was even more of a headache. It took countless tries following the very vague directions that came with the device. I almost gave up on those but finally got them to work, and I can’t explain why they suddenly worked. The other protocol devices connected ok. When you connect a device, you must specify what room the device is in, or what floor it is on. This puts it in the correct place in the device tree. Once you have all your devices connected, it’s time to create your scripts, or flows as they call them. This is both challenging and fun. First you select an action from a device, then you select a condition from a device, then you select an action on a device to take place. As a simple example, you can turn on a light from a button by selecting the button pressed action from the button device. This obviously takes place when the button is pressed. Then you use a condition such as all the plugs in a certain room, or a specific plug in that room. The condition could be that the plugs are all off. Then the action is to turn on all the plugs which turn on all the lights. You can create another flow which has a condition that when all the lights are on and therefore turn them all off in that room. This works great except in one condition that sometimes would happen to me. If you turn on all the lights and only some of them turn on because of some unknown problem, now you are in a state where you can’t do anything because the scripts assume that either all the lights are on or all the lights are off. In this case, only some of the lights are on so the lights are stuck in their current state. This could probably be solved with multiple more complicated flows. This was a big problem since the lights were stuck on and off. Luckly you can manually turn the individual lights on or off with the Homey app. This is just a simple example, and you can create much more complicated flows with more conditions and devices. The app allows you to create these flows, but they are much easier to create on the Homey web page. Nowhere does it tell you where the web page is, and you just must search for it on the internet. It is my.homey.app in case you are wondering. The web page allows you to get blocks for actions and conditions where you can drag and drop them on a page and connect them together. For anyone who has used Visio, it is like that. Selecting the devices is very intuitive since the devices are in that nicely laid out tree. The web page has everything that is in the app, just easier to use. There is the ability to run a test on a script which is nice since it doesn’t require interacting with the real hardware devices. The scripts can be simple or very complicated with many devices and conditions. You can basically do just about anything in your imagination with the right script. It does take practice creating the right scripts that work. There are example scripts online that you can play with and gives ideas what you can do. Each device has its own types of actions and conditions depending on what the device is. There are other devices such as curtains that can be opened or closed as an action, temperature sensors that can read the temperature as a condition. You can also add delays into the flows if you want an action to take place, wait some amount of time, and then move on to the next action. Overall, this is a fun yet frustrating device to use. Once you can get all the devices connected, creating the flows is fun but can be challenging to get them to work correctly, but that is the fun of it. You will then have a great automated house. I would recommend this to anyone who needs this flexibility and complexity, just be prepared to spend a lot of time setting it up.

The Homey Pro is an all-in-one smart home hub for people who want to be able to use all of their different smart home devices with a single app, without the need to run multiple hubs. It's big on promise and is an off-the-shelf integrated solution. As someone who runs a few Raspberry Pi's to try and overcome limitations of manufacturer hubs, I had hopes that Homey would provide a better user friendly solution. It's promising, but not quite there yet - but you can see the potential. -= In the Box =- In the box is the Homey Pro, a USB to USB C cable, and a small charger. -= First Impressions =- This has an Alexa hockey-puck vibe, although it's about 1" in diamter bigger. The Homey has no discernible buttons and lights up like a Christmas tree thanks to RGB lighting. The good news is you CAN turn off the RGB lights in the app. There's no ethernet port, so you are free to set up the Homey anywhere you need in your home. It doesn't need to be tethered to your modem or router. -= Setup =- Setup involves downloading the (free) homey app. After a straight forward registration process, you are then able to setup your Homey. There was a firmware update to my Homey during initial setup. I think the app hung at one point because the app said it was restarting the homey for 10minutes with no obvious LED or other changes on the Homey. I took the gamble to exit and restart the Homey app and it was OK (yay). Adding smart devices requires adding them as devices and either putting them into pairing mode so they pair with the Homey or logging in via an API connection. I started with my Ring doorbells, which was fast and easy. Other devices were honestly a bit of a mixed bag - Honeywell only supported one sort of Honeywell thermostat; For unsupported devices (my Dreo air circulator) you can request it via the app. For some devices, while there was no official all (LG Thinq) there was a community app. Although the LG community app errored for no reason. My Samsung oven worked, but required generating a token in the Samsung app. This makes setup for some things with Homey easy and others complicated - I don't blame Homey for the complexity, they're a victim of it. But it does mean you still need to maintain other apps, logins, hubs for initial setup - so the question I ask myself does Homey solve a problem or just add another step to the process (kind of like universal remotes are great but you also frustrating). -= What's Good =- The potential for awesomeness is huge - with support for Z-Wave, Zigbee, Matter, and Infrared - this could be your one hub to rule them all. The Homey app is clean, intuitive, and easy to use. There's no subscription fees (on this pro version). You can connect it to your Google Home or Alexa to use it with voice controls. The Homey also lets you do some automations with what they call "Flows". It has all of the features that an advanced user would want. You can also bridge multiple Homeys together if your home is big. FYI. It was not an issue for me in a 2 floor home with basement - there was no range issues. -= What's Not So Good =- There are some bugs in their "apps" which are essentially like extensions you use to connect to other smart devices. I couldn't get my Lutron system to work (and it's an official app). The Honeywell doesn't support all Honeywell devices - and I know it can be done, because I use a Raspberry Pi with home automation software to connect to my Honeywell thermostat. I kind of wish it had an ethernet port. For devices like Ring, it shows a snapshot of the video but not a live feed - so you still need the Ring app. You also can't use HomeKit, which feels like a miss (but probably Apple's fault). -= Final Thoughts =- I really am in the sweet spot of what Homey should cater for - I have Lutron lights, a few random Meross bulbs, a Dreo smart fan, Waze and Ring Cameras, a Sonos and a mix of Google Homes and Alexas. Unfortunately, I am not standardized on Z Wave or Matter (yet) so I am only getting at most 50% of the value of the Homey's potential. The Homey is encouraging me to make that switch to future proofed smart home kit. But if you're hoping the Homey can let you go from many apps, to one app or disparate non industry standard hubs to one hub - it's not right for you yet. If you most of your home is already Matter, Zigbee or Z Wave - the Homey is perfect. My last last last thought is you can download the Homey App and play with it without owning a Homey. I would get the app, setup an account and check what is supported in your home before you buy. Just so you can be sure it 100% meets your needs and home setup.

TLDR: The Homey Pro has a lot of potential, but the steep learning curve, lack of documentation on Homey’s behalf, and lack of customization options does not make for an ideal solution. SUPPORTED PROTOCOLS Wi-Fi Zigbee Z-Wave Infrared Bluetooth Matter Thread INITIAL CONFIGURATION & INSTALLED APPS The Homey Pro was reluctant to get up and running on my Galaxy smartphone. I went through many restarts of the app and multiple set-up attempts before the Homey decided to finally play nice and fully connect to my home Wi-Fi. Once connected, it automatically downloaded a firmware update and since, the stability of the Homey seems to have improved considerably. However, it was quite time consuming in the beginning. SET-UP Depending on the device you are wanting to control, depends on how the Homey handles set-up. Some devices, like IR devices, need no additional apps to make work, as the Homey has a built-in IR emitter. Other products, like my Eufy devices, iRobots, Ecovac, etc. require an app download to find and add products to the Homey ecosystem. Have your passwords handy. When you download an app, it is basically a version of the manufacturer’s app contained within the Homey app. Some apps are supported directly by Homey, other apps are supported and created by users. Having this amount of depth and resources to pull from, allows the Homey Pro to support up to a staggering 50,000 different devices from over 1,000 different manufacturers, at least according to Homey press material. Apps supported directly by Homey are a huge plus as users are pretty much assured that the integrations and bug fixes remain current. However, apps created by the community can be hit or miss. Some community created apps work better than others and if a creator doesn’t keep on top of changes, apps and compatibility can quickly fall out of date and sync with each other. USE In a nutshell, the Homey app resembles the IFTTT. If This, Then That. That’s the nitty gritty of the Homey app. If something happens, then this happens. Homey refers to this as Flows. Homey has done a GREAT job at making flows easy to use and create. Super easy compared to other, older players in the market. The Homey app has a simple to use GUI that allows a buyer to easily create and customize different scenarios. Whether it be actions based on a geofence, time of day, button push, water detection, motion, etc. The possibilities are nearly endless. But those nearly endless possibilities are also Homey’s Achilles heel. The Homey Pro requires a serious commitment from the buyer to get down in the weeds of home automation. From downloading and incorporating apps, recreating accounts within the Homey ecosystem, setting up devices, creating flows, it is a time consuming and often frustrating endeavor. Maybe I would have had better luck with and iPad or iPhone, but I find the Homey app for Android buggy and often slow to respond and update when trying to install new devices. Several times, new devices are not correctly discovered, and I must force close or cancel set-up and start over. By several times, my success rate of installing a new device on my Galaxy phone in just one attempt is approximately 25%. To be fair to Homey, if all, or nearly all, my home automation products were from the same vendor or a limited number of vendors, things would have undoubtedly been much easier. However, I have products from many different vendors and set-up was time consuming and hit or miss. The most frustrating part of my entire set-up process was my home theater. The easiest, most straight-forward room in my house for the Homey. I set up the Homey in a sweet spot, ensuring all devices were easily visible to the Homey’s IR emitter. There were no apps to download, nothing to configure, just IR devices (aside from the Fire TV). An Epson projector, Sony AVR, Sony Blu-ray player, Xbox Series X, Amazon Fire TV Stick Max, and Lutron IR controlled dimmer switches. Epic failure. The Homey could not reliably communicate with any of my devices. IR commands were spotty, often leading to missed commands. Examples include: my AVR that would power on, but not power off. My Epson projector that would power on but could not power toggle to shut off. Not only was the IR performance spotty and unreliable, the Homey app does not allow you any customizations that I can find. For example, my Sony AVR has different inputs based on the device. Game, Blu-Ray, Media Box, etc. While the functions are there in Homey, you can’t rename the inputs based on the remote. You are stuck with HDMI-1, HDMI-2, etc., at least what I could find. COMPATIBILITY Homey claims a very deep and robust list of compatible devices that work with the Pro. They do have some very heavy hitting, mainstream manufacturers listed, a majority that are surely to be in most everyone's’ homes. Sadly, while those big label manufacturers are listed, Homey doesn’t support all their devices, whether new or older. For example, while Homey has compatibility with Eufy, they don’t support the full Eufy ecosystem. Maybe I just got the oddball Eufy products, but there were several devices that I have not listed as compatible. Those that were compatible took a minimum of 3 different attempts to finally connect to the Homey ecosystem, that doesn’t count the colossal time suck that it takes to get the Eufy app to work within Homey. Maybe its just my choice of products, but there are too many holes left unfilled by the Homey Pro to justify me making it my whole home hub. There are things I want to control, that I just can’t, due to lack of compatibility. Eufy was just the beginning. Examples include; my Ecovac is supported only by the community, so actual control of my device is a workaround from another mopping / vacuum compatible Ecovac model, leaving some features unsupported. My Blueair air filters are not supported. My Honeywell thermostats are not supported, my Chamberlin MyQ garage door openers. The list goes on. FINAL THOUGHTS Homey’s main premise and selling point is that you keep control of your home automation at the local level, not needing a constant connection to the cloud to operate devices. While that is partially true, once you get a device set-up and configured, you don’t need a cloud connection to operate it, Homey can do it locally. But you still must have that cloud connection for initial account set-up. For me, local control of your devices isn’t as big of a selling point as Homey tries to make it. Why? Even if Homey is controlling your devices locally, those devices are still connected to the cloud. Homey doesn’t sever their connection; they still have phone home to operate. Take my Sonos systems for example. Homey will control them, but they are still communicating with the Sonos app via the cloud. Any changes I make in the Homey app gets reflected in the Sonos app. In the end, I can’t justify giving the Homey Pro a Recommended rating. My success with the product is much lower than others have reported. It isn’t due to a lack of trying; I have spent many hours over several days trying to get everything working properly. I will fully admit that my results are improving, and more items are working, it is the simple stuff that I really want to work that doesn’t. Not to mention the endless amount of frustration involved during initial configuration, just makes the hassle not worth it in the long run. Those hoping this device will be something that can replace a full-on whole home automation system with a centralized controller, will most likely be left disappointed. I am. NOT RECOMMENDED

I've been in home automation for over 18 years, have used so many controllers and devices, this is the worst of all at a premium price. The only thing that is nice about Homey Pro is the creating automation (Flows), they really mastered it and made it so nice and easy, you can be as creative as you want with simple click. That stops here, everything else is junk. I had to replace some 20 z-wave and wifi devices that worked for so many years with my exiting controllers, but they did not work with Homey Pro. I bought Thread devices because it said on the website that is supported, but it turned out that is not true, it has to be Thread over Matter! I tried Matter plugs, and did not work even though supposed to work without an app. Even supported devices that have an app on their site, try to add it and it will not, few days later it will. Backup local is so stupid, the site says you can backup cloud or local easily, well for cloud yes, all you have to do click a button on the web interface and you are done, of course you have to subscribe and pay, for local backup, you have to disconnect the unit, plug it to a computer, then press the pin with a paper clip on the back of the unit and then do a system backup, it is so complicated so that you give in and subscribe. Support for devices is very limited, extremely limited no matter which protocol you use. I even bought a Homey extender/repeater and it really does not do anything. My old controller worked without a repeater and all devices worked perfectly, and that controller is over 7 years old. Stay as far as you can. I need to find a replacement for this, waiting for a few new devices coming out soon from different vendors. One last thing, support does not exist. You send an email and you wait weeks to hear back. Community support is good to a certain point. In all the years I did home automation I never needed to contact support, with this device, every device you try to install needs a support ticket. Not making this up.

After buying my home in 2016 I maybe went _a little_ overboard with home automation and IoT. It started with a Nest thermostat and smoke detectors, then Lutron Caseta for my lights, and then I ended up adding SmartThings for everything else all within the first few months. I've since added Hue, LG, BlueAir, Arlo, and Eufy connected home devices and dozens of other little nicknacks here and there with IoT connectivity via Wifi. At some point, SmartThings updated their platform and took away the classic IDE, disabling cloud-powered automations in many cases. Since SmartThings is a Samsung product, interconnectivity with competitors like LG Thinq is a pipe dream, as well. The platform just feels like it's being phased out by Samsung despite home automation taking off with standards like Matter coming out. Enter Homey Pro. This little hub has a pretty powerful ArmV8 quad-core CPU and 2 GB of RAM to run more stuff locally. It is basically a small linux box under the hood, with tons of customizability for power users via JavaScript. Even if you aren't a power user, you can take advantage of other nerds' work through community apps. I've been using the Homey Pro for almost a week now, and I'm going to share my experience below. #Pre-setup# While the Homey Pro is advertised with solid Wifi connectivity (2.4/5ghz AC capability), I chose to order the Ethernet adapter from Homey to get a more solid connection. #Initial setup# I started at around 6PM on a Monday. Unboxing the Homey Pro and connecting to my network was super easy. I connected via Wireless first, then connected the wired ethernet adapter. Be careful to follow the instructions as the ethernet adapter connects sort of in the reverse from what you might expect. The hub automatically updated the firmware when I got it online, which took about 5-10 minutes. I love the app interface and prefer it to SmartThings most of the time. My goal for the first night was just to get my various cloud services connected to Homey. Those services include: 1. LG Thinq Washer and Dryer 2. Philips Hue Bridge 3. Lutron Caseta (non pro hub) 4. Yale Access (aka August home locks) 5. Nest Thermostat and Protect smoke detectors 6. Samsung SmartThings fridge, oven, and microwave I ended up finding an app for my Onkyo receivers that I added as well during this phase, along with my sheer delight at learning the Homey hub can link directly to Chromecast devices for audio streaming for alarms or voice messages. Of these devices, I got almost everything connected within minutes. Minor exception: Samsung Microwave. The "official" app that connects SmartThings to Homey didn't support the microwave, which would have been nice to be able to control the LED or vent fan. There are some "community" apps that I haven't tried yet. Bigger exception: Nest Protect doesn't connect to Homey, just my Thermostat. As a result, I can't turn off my ceiling fans if the smoke detectors go off. I'm investigating workarounds for this, or just changing smoke detector brands (they are 7-8 years old, so worth researching anyway). #Harder stuff# I got the cloud stuff connected quickly enough that I ended up deciding to move ALL of my zigbee and z-wave stuff that first night. Took less than 3 hours to move all my stuff... until I got to my garage. I use an old Z-wave device that connects to my non-smart garage door opener, and that device doesn't have direct support in Homey. I also found that some of my Zigbee contact sensors (all CentraLite built from SmartThings or Iris) could connect to Homey but don't have any features supported (temperature, acceleration, and open/close all non-working). Since I don't actually use the open/close sensors for automations anymore, this wasn't a big deal, but I like using them for historical tracking or to check if a door is left open when I'm out of the house. I posted on the homey subreddit and one of Homey's founders gave a helpful reply recommending that I dive into JavaScript to roll my own and help the community. In the short term, I moved my Z-wave garage door opener back to SmartThings so I can continue to use it while I work on a solution (or buy a homey-compatible relay). For the record, installing the Homey CLI controls on your PC (or Mac) is super easy if you've done anything in powershell and/or node.js before. I was up and running with integration in VS Code and node.js in less than 20 minutes and started poking around with my first app. I'm not a JavaScript dev by trade so this is going to be a tinkering project for awhile :) #Stuff I love, 6 days in# -Automating with Flows in the Homey app is incredibly easy. -Everything is VERY responsive, both just swiping through the app and also in the reaction time for automations. I attribute this to the Homey Pro being so much more powerful than my old hub, and also to the developers and community being so focused on local-first for connectivity. -My Lutron dimmers respond as fast through Homey as they do through the Caseta app - and they update status immediately in Homey if I control through the Caseta app, which has never worked properly on SmartThings. -Same goes for Hue lights. -Homey presence detection seems to work very well for controlling my Nest thermostat (even the official Nest app for Android sucks at this). -I love having the Chromecast connection in Homey - being able to read the status of Chromecast streams or playing an alarm or notification sound through speakers is amazing. #Frustrations# 1. There are some times that Homey is really smart (automating based on "cards" like "all lights" in a zone), and times when it's kinda clunky (if you don't want all lights in a zone but just a few lights, you have to add them individually and can't just tick checkboxes in a list) 2. Support for older Z-wave devices via community apps or official support seems less robust than SmartThings. Makes sense since some of these devices probably pre-date Homey existing, but still frustrating. 3. Some strange behavior for Zigbee plugs and switches that support energy monitoring. Wattage reported is many times higher than actual. I remember having this problem in SmartThings and it being easy to fix, but I can't figure out how to do it in Homey. Most of the "advanced settings" in Homey are not-editable for my unsupported Zwave and Zigbee devices. You have to get deeper under the hood than the app supports, basically. 4. I wish it supported my LG TV as well as the Samsung Microwave out of the box, but I haven't looked into the 'community' apps for these capabilities, yet. 5. I haven't actually installed and tested this, but I found a Homey app that supports reading the status of your Xbox friends. You could literally make an automation in Homey that changes your lights to "RED" and plays a siren sound on your speakers when your friends log on. I think this is awesome and hilarious. #Conclusion# I had just started researching moving on from SmartThings when I got the opportunity to review this hub. Compared to rolling your own solution with something like HomeAssistant, Homey Pro seems like a really easy intermediate step that theoretically offers the same level of power as something like HA, but all in one device with solid official and community support. I ended up paying for the Homey Backup plan that does nightly backups of my hub configuration ($10/yr), so I could roll back by 24 hours if I messed something up. My final thought is that if you can verify your devices are supported already, the Homey Pro is an absolute no-brainer. If your stuff isn't supported natively and you are somewhat savvy, you can probably fix it on your own. Extending that, if you're reasonably good at programming you can roll your own apps to interact with APIs that will never have open support (I'm planning to integrate with my Midea air conditioner for example). The Homey platform is just a lot more powerful and open to tinkering than what I've gotten used to with post-classic SmartThings. Kudos to Homey for the polish and power of the Homey Pro - it's a really incredible product.

I consider myself to be somewhat tech-savvy. I have my home pretty much filled with IoT devices. I set up my home mesh network. I thought it would be great to get one hub to control all of the many smart devices throughout my home and have one centralized app to go to. I have an app for the Feit lights, the Sengled lights, the Roomba, the Eufy doorbell and Eufy front door lock, the LG vacuum, the Ecobee Thermostat Tapo, LG, and…. Well, you get the picture. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have one place to go to setup new devices, update, change routines, check status, etc? I thought the Homey Pro (Early 2023) Smart Home Hub was the thing that would allow simplicity. Unfortunately, that didn't work out for me. Setup of the Homey Pro was rather straightforward via their app on my iPhone. Homey Pro then tried locating devices on my network. Strangely, it found only Spotify (why?) and ChromeCast, which i don't use. The rest, I searched for and I did find a few. I was thrilled to see my Eufy doorbell setup so easily only to find out that Homey Pro doesn’t show video. And actually, since the time I set up Eufy in Homey, the doorbell - notifications and videos - no longer worked! It showed one image that indicated it was recent but it just stayed on that one image day after day even after I refreshed it. Come to find out, my doorbell had been disabled by the install on the Homey Pro, so basically my front door was unprotected. I deleted Eufy from the Homey Pro and the doorbell app once again works fine. I was able to set up my Roomba vacuum, but it lacks some of the features - most importantly, the mapping. I can't tell Roomba where to go! I deleted Roomba from the Homey Pro. I could set up the LG refrigerator, but not the LG vacuum. Devices either don’t work with it, apps don’t function correctly or Homey Pro simply doesn't have enough information yet - they say new devices are added daily, but I can't wait to get my Smart-Home working just to use this hub. Perhaps in the future, or if you use devices that it DOES work with now, you would be happy with this. But for me, now is not the time for the Homey Pro (Early 2023) Smart Home Hub.

I'm gonna admit that I got the Homey Pro thinking it was another assistant to replace Google Home or an Echo, but it's not really an assistant more than it's a home automation tool. So it's kinda tough to really find a use for it when I don't need automation since telling the assistants what I need when I need it is simple enough. However, the automation is pretty powerful but I couldn't test it because nothing but my Hue lights and Dyson fan paired with it. I couldn't come up with any kind of routine that would make use of a fan and a few lights. Most of my other devices had community made apps but none of them worked well - wouldn't pair or wouldn't control correctly. My AC did have an official app, but it didn't control the AC correctly and would change the fan speed when changing the temp. And it would change the temp 1 degree off of what I requested. The community app required the User/Pass combo to be inserted into the app settings instead of requesting permission like other apps do. My main reason to use it was because I was tired of all the privacy concerns with Assistants, how slow Google Home is, and how nagging Echo is. I wish the Homey Pro could have torn me away from the other devices, but sadly it requires one of them to actually become an assistant. Without them, it's mostly just a "universal remote" for my devices - like what I already have. I linked Google Home with it and, while it worked fine, it ran at the speed of Google - 5-10 delay in commands like normal. Echo has always been fast, but I didn't spend the time setting it up with Homey Pro after finding out what the Homey actually does. So, unless it can one day link up with my other devices and I think I need some automation in my life this product isn't for me. It's well made and does what it's supposed to do fantastically, but I just can't find reason to work it into my flow.