Homey Pro Smart Home Hub Review – 6 Months Later
Homey Pro Smart Home Hub Review – 6 Months Later
Is the Homey Pro smart home hub worth its $399 price? 6 Months Later, what are its best features? What are the downsides of using it and who exactly should pick up this hub for their smartphone? We’ll answer all of those questions in this review plus compare going with the Homey Pro to Home Assistant and who should go for each type of smart home hub.
We’ll also take you through what hardware standards Homey Pro supports, the Homey app, Flows and Advanced Flows, which are what Homey calls their smart home automations, Homey Pro apps, Homey Script, the downsides of going with Homey over other smart home solutions, and our recommendations.
🛒 Product Links (Affiliate Links):
👉Homey Pro: https://amzn.to/48CLjcH
👉Home Assistant Green (affiliate):https://ameridroid.com/products/home-assistant-green?ref=zvL2wAvxTNzJB2
👉M3 MacBook Air: https://amzn.to/3TEBbM4
👉 View all of our recommended products: https://www.amazon.com/shop/6monthslaterreviews
💻 Get Deal Alerts on our Recommended Products
Plus a Recap of Everything We Publish Each Month
👉 Sign up for our free monthly newsletter: https://6monthslater.substack.com/?showWelcome=true
🔗 Related Video links:
👉 My Smart Home Tour 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY1aagQ_ues
👉 How to Start a Smart Home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYjxzsgM0J4
❤️ Follow Josh:
👉 Threads: https://www.threads.net/@joshteder
👉 Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/joshteder/
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshteder/
👉 Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@joshteder
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshteder/
🎥 Video Production Equipment we use 📹
https://amzn.to/3Ejc1JR
🕰️Timestamps:
0:00 – External Design and Hardware
1:16 – Homey App
3:32 – Homey Flows and Advanced Flows
5:24 – Battery Status and Automated Updates
5:50 – Homey Pro vs. Home Assistant
6:28 – Downsides
7:34 – Recommendations
📜 Disclosures 📃
Any music used is licensed from artlist.io
The Homey Pro was provided to the channel by Homey. All other products were purchased by 6 Months Later. This video has no sponsor.
Any Amazon links we provide in our descriptions are in conjunction with our Amazon partnership. The channel receives a small percentage of revenue from any sales generated by viewers clicking the links.
#HomeyPro
#Homey
#HomeAssistant
#SmartHome
as usual this guy thinks lights are smart home. like too many rubes. its playing with lights and nothing more.
499 USD in Sweden, so even more expensive. Yuck!
Eagerly waiting for the Aqara M3, every single sensor and light in my place has matter support anyway. It should still be easy to operate and I also want to get their Doorbell and U200 lock at some point. Much cheaper than the Homey Pro as well.
Home assistant’s updates drive me MAD. There was some update that removed the switch entity from ALL of my z-wave wall switches. It’s been months and I just sort of gave up on smart home stuff because of it. I need a simpler plug-and-play solution like this so I don’t go postal.
Needed to see this, so i could understand what all the hooplah is about. I’ve seen friends hop into the Home Assistant camp *and* the Homey Pro camp, each group claiming theirs is the "winner". I’d love to see a Venn diagram of where their respective userbase overlaps, if at all.
Not enough compatibility with Google Nest products for instance, so I’m gonna wait until then.
I don’t own a homey, but I saw an app called HomeKitty, Tried that app instead of the experimental built in one
When much does it cost 100 dollars i will replace my home assistant for Homey
Hey it’s Bon Jovi from the 2011 Lib Dub challenge
I’m a long time user of homey pro, since 2016. (early 2016 version). The great thing is that i still get updates with latest functionality. like dashboards and advanced flows. It is very stable and it has been improving all the time.
Way too expensive
The UI is polished, Flows are a very, very cool way to build automation rules. Unfortunately, as you stated, too many of my devices were unsupported. At $399, I had to return it for a refund and stick with my Hubitat hub. Hubitat is a great device with the ability to build complicated rules as much as you like, the drawback is the ugly UI and terrible "app." I’ll have to checkout the Home Assistant Green device soon.
The video didn’t provide enough practical examples of how to connect devices to Homey or how Homey integrates with specific smart home devices.
The reviewer spent too much time on general information about Homey and not enough time on the specifics of how it works.
The video was overall a waste of time and the reviewer’s comments were not very informative.
Great hub, very happy user.
If you have the FP2 remove it from Homekit and add it to Homey using Homekit Controller works Perfect!
The price is crazy. The Hubitat c8 pro does more for half the price.
I use Homey Pro for 5 years or so. I am very happy with it, even if sometimes it takes some time studiing solutions. Not having the hassle of several hubs and extra antennas is a very great advantage. With HA green you are not there yet: some cost will add up, so the cost difference will be less in the end. In Homey I could very easily set up my initial automations: worked within an hour. But much more advanced automations are possible. Advanced Flows are extremely powerful and great fun to use. I always do my homework of finding out if the a device is supported, though. And VERY regularly new apps are added. Besides that, some z-wave and Zigbee devices work anyway, even without a dedicated app. And if you are smart enough to set op Home Assistant (which i am not) you can even make your own ap or script. And by the way Josh: at 1:13 you connected the LAN adapter wrong. It has to sit near the poweradapter, so you won’t see it when istalled. So: i really think Homey is very interesting for very many people, as entry knowledge-level is low, automation is both simple and very powerful, and you and your home-automation can (and will) grow playfully.
I use Homey, I am very happy with it.
You obviously missed the mess last week that showed that Homey is not as local as advertised. The authentication is done on the web and last week’s server problem proved that. Additionally, you really don’t want Homey to update automatically as that will break your community apps at some point due to developers not updating their apps. As both the Homey and community apps are closed source, forking is not possible.
if your asking your self should i buy this. then no don’t ! it’s grate when it works for sure…. but this is beta. no one told me it was F -ing Beta. this is to much for beta… i was also told it would work local that was bullshit cos i need to have internet so i can use the app and homey pro need internet so it can connect to the server so i can access it through the app. if internet is offline the it will still control your light and stuff for about a week unless you restart it cos the light is red. and don’t turn off the update cos i did that after updates forced my box to go offline for 2-3 weeks. i don’t know whats wrong with the f-ing thing it works but it loses connection to the dns server now and then. the box is right there but the server is not letting it connect so i can’t do shit.
Could we have a Homey-Home Assistant Hybrid built? I’m a smart home "enthusiast" who doesn’t want to be doing weekly fixes. So, "set it and forget it." It still seems to me that living in only one ecosystem is my best bet, although it severely limits what can be done. (In reality, I’m living in numerous ecosystems that I would like to reduce to a single one, and it would be Apple HomeKit if it would do all things.)
You’re wrong about the Aqara FP2 sensor @ 2:30. It works amazingly well with Homey Pro through the Homekit Controller app, not Aqara app on the Homey Pro. P.S. I don’t even have or use the apple ecosystem in my house. Team Android 💪🏾. I own 2 FP2 sensors that work with Homey and I don’t use the native Aqara app at all, only during the intial setup and for updates. Homey like every other smart home device is for tinkeres. Just like Home assistant. Just nicer to look at and on a lesser scale. Everything in the smart home realm has its pitfalls. Its a relationship with a woman. Some real great days and more bad days. But you love them anyway and you’re not going anywhere. Even when you’re caught cheating. Lol food for thought
Those flows are a super old concept from back in 2015 then IoT was starting to pickup. Is that unique to Homey and not part of Home Assistant? it’s something I really wanna setup so I’m not tied to a single manufacturer’s products.
This device has customers very low rating??!!!!!!
Djeez that price!
I’m a JavaScript developer, and love the idea of writing JS; potentially TypeScript, over Python like Home Assistant. Still, I was burned by SmartThings and so many other solutions over the years that I picked a few manufacturers and kept with those solutions. Home Assistant looks like it’ll hold out longer, and it’s not tied to a single device.
smart things is better than homey or home assistant.
Product links, related videos, social follow links and newsletter signup:
🛒 Product Links (Affiliate Links):
👉Homey Pro: https://amzn.to/48CLjcH
👉Home Assistant Green (affiliate):https://ameridroid.com/products/home-assistant-green?ref=zvL2wAvxTNzJB2
👉M3 MacBook Air: https://amzn.to/3TEBbM4
👉 View all of our recommended products: http://www.amazon.com/shop/6monthslaterreviews
💻 Get Deal Alerts on our Recommended Products
Plus a Recap of Everything We Publish Each Month
👉 Sign up for our free monthly newsletter: https://6monthslater.substack.com/?showWelcome=true
🔗 Related Video links:
👉 My Smart Home Tour 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY1aagQ_ues
👉 How to Start a Smart Home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYjxzsgM0J4
❤ Follow Josh:
👉 Threads: https://www.threads.net/@joshteder
👉 Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/joshteder/
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshteder/
👉 Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@joshteder
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshteder/
Would you say that for people having almost no smart devices Homey is a good choice ? I mean, except some light bulbs i have nothing, could i start with Homey and buy only new stuff or stuff i know is compatible ?
i would go with Fibaro , no subscription but price is higher
If you were to connect the Ethernet adapter the way you show us at 1:13 it will definitely fail.
It is neatly explained here: https://youtu.be/kHsv5GH93Mw
About the company you refer to at 1:41 – it’s Athom, not Anthom.
As for the rest: what did you yourself think of this review?
Your points on Homekit and Aqara compatibility aren’t 100% true, FYI.
The "Homekit Controller" app allows you to add various devices from iOS to Homey, including the FP2, and doing so does not require another device.
The "Homekit experiment" and / or "Homekitty" apps allow you to bring all Homey devices into Homekit, the former being an app developed from Anthom, the latter developed by the community. The latter is preferred by most, as it allows you to pick and choose which devices you want to expose to Homekit.
Just a couple notes from a Homey fan. I use Home Assistant for a small handful of automations, but much prefer Homey for it’s simplicity, reliability, and Advanced Flows.
Great Video!
Very well made video!💪👍 Nice approach.