[APP][PRO] Backup Center — Homey Configuration Backup & Selective Restore

[Dennis_Weel]

Backup Center — Homey configuration backup & selective restore

Backup Center v0.4.7 is now available

First of all, a big thank you to Michael Madson, Mike_Nono, Sharkys and Peter_Kawa for all your testing, screenshots and feedback. I really appreciate the time you’ve put into testing Backup Center and helping me make the app more user-friendly and reliable.

What’s changed in v0.4.7

• Fixed WebDAV destinations not appearing in the Network Backup Flow cards. WebDAV destinations should now appear alongside SMB, SFTP and FTP destinations.
• The destination reachability check now also supports WebDAV.
• The Selective Restore interface has been checked for the English/Dutch language issue that was reported earlier.

I’d really appreciate some additional testing of v0.4.7, especially:

• Does your WebDAV destination now appear correctly in the Flow cards?
• Do the Network backup completed / failed destination selections work correctly?
• Do existing SMB, SFTP and FTP destinations still work as expected?
• Is the Selective Restore interface now displayed in the correct language for you?
• Following Michael’s report: does Download File / Share or save work correctly in your browser? If not, please mention which browser you tested.

Remote restore

The request to restore a backup directly from a configured remote destination (WebDAV, SMB, SFTP or FTP), instead of first having to provide the backup file from your desktop/browser, has not been implemented yet.

I think this would be a useful addition, so I’ve noted it as a feature request for a future version.

Please let me know if you find anything strange, even if it seems minor. Screenshots and details about your browser/Homey setup are especially helpful when something doesn’t work as expected.

Thanks again Michael Madson, Mike_Nono, Sharkys and Peter_Kawa for helping test and improve Backup Center!

Backup Center v0.4.6 is now live!

Thanks everyone for the feedback and testing. Version 0.4.6 is now available in the Homey App Store.

What’s new:

• Automatic backups now support SMB2, SFTP and FTP, in addition to WebDAV.
• Fixed the “Sandboxed documents aren’t allowed to show a file picker” error when saving a local backup.
• Network destinations are now available directly in the Automatic backup → Backup destination selector.
• Backup destinations stay synchronized when network destinations are added or removed.
• An active automatic-backup destination can no longer accidentally be removed while it is being used by the schedule.

A special thanks to SingKT and Cor_Brink for testing, reporting the issues and helping identify where the user experience could be improved. Your feedback directly contributed to the fixes in this release.

One thing that is not yet included: when restoring a backup, “Choose backup file” still uses the file picker of your phone/computer. It cannot yet browse backups stored directly on your configured SMB2/SFTP/FTP destination. That is something I’d consider to improve in a future version.

Thanks again for helping make Backup Center better!

Version 0.4.5 is now live in the Homey App Store.

The main addition in this release is Better Logic Library backup and selective restore support.

Better Logic Library boolean, number and string variables are now included in Backup Center configuration backups. When restoring a backup, BLL variables have their own section in the selective restore overview, just like the other supported configuration parts.

Existing BLL values can be restored individually. If a permanent BLL variable no longer exists on Homey but is present in the backup, Backup Center can also recreate it when you explicitly select it for restore. Unrelated BLL variables are left untouched, and every change is checked again after the restore.

As with the rest of Backup Center, nothing is restored automatically just by opening a backup or creating a restore plan. You first see the detected differences and choose exactly what you want to restore.

A special thanks to @peter_kawa for his testing, feedback and good ideas. Peter specifically pointed out that Better Logic Library variables were missing from the backup. That feedback directly led to adding BLL backup and restore support in v0.4.5.

Thanks again to everyone who has been testing Backup Center and sharing ideas. That feedback is genuinely helping shape what gets added next.

v0.4.5 highlights: Better Logic Library backup, selective BLL restore, safe recreation of missing permanent BLL variables, post-restore verification, and continued compatibility with older Backup Center backups (formats 2–4).

Backup Center in the Homey App Store

Backup Center v0.4.5 on GitHub

Backup Center v0.4.4

Backup Center started as an idea and, with help from AI and a few beta testers who will be mentioned below, first appeared here on the Community as a beta project.

Thanks to the testing, feedback and suggestions from Homey Community members, the app has since progressed from that original beta into a public release in the Homey App Store.

The original development and testing posts below have intentionally been kept in this topic, so anyone interested can follow how the app evolved.

Current version: v0.4.4

Backup Center is a Homey app for backing up, comparing and, where possible, selectively restoring important parts of your Homey configuration.

In addition to downloading backups locally, Backup Center supports network backups using:

• SMB2

• SFTP

• FTP

Backups can also be automated using Homey Flows, so you do not have to start every backup manually.

What changed in v0.4.4?

Version 0.4.4 mainly improves the selective restore interface.

Some feedback showed that it was not clear enough that Backup Center does not simply perform a full restore when you load a backup.

The restore process is now explained more clearly:

1. Open a backup.

2. Let Backup Center compare it with your current Homey configuration.

3. Review the detected differences.

4. Select only the changes you actually want to restore.

5. Explicitly start the restore.

Creating the restore plan does not change anything on Homey.

Nothing is restored until you select the changes and explicitly start the restore.

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Install Backup Center

Backup Center is publicly available in the Homey App Store:

Backup Center | Homey

The app can be installed normally from the App Store; the old beta/test release is no longer required.

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Backup Center started as a beta project and is now publicly available in the Homey App Store.

What currently works?

Backup Center can back up:

• Standard Flows and Advanced Flows

• Flow folders

• Logic variables

• Zones

• Devices

• Supported device settings

• Installed app information

Backups can be downloaded locally or automatically sent to your own network storage using SMB2, SFTP or FTP.

You can also automate backups using Homey Flows, so backups can be created without having to start them manually.

Before restoring anything, Backup Center first creates a restore plan. It compares the backup with the current Homey configuration and shows you what differs.

You then decide which detected changes you want to restore.

Backup Center does not blindly restore every difference it finds.

This was already how the restore system worked, but since v0.4.4 the interface makes this much more explicit.

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The restore plan compares the backup with the current Homey configuration before anything is changed.

What have we actually tested?

During development we performed end-to-end restore tests for:

• Logic values

• Device names

• Device zones

• A real device setting

• Standard Flows

• Advanced Flows

After each restore, we also verified that Homey actually contained the expected value or configuration.

As an additional consistency test, a fresh v4 backup was immediately compared against the same Homey:

77 apps · 23 zones · 49 Logic variables · 115 devices · 38 Standard Flows · 94 Advanced Flows — 0 differences

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Fresh backup compared with the same Homey: all configuration categories matched, with 0 changes required.

Network backups have also been tested with actual backup files using SMB2, SFTP and FTP, in addition to automated regression tests.

This does not mean that every Homey app, NAS, driver and device combination has been tested. Reports from different configurations are therefore still very useful.

Network backup options

SMB2

Suitable for many NAS devices and Windows/Samba network shares.

SMB2 network backups have been tested with actual Homey backup files.

Community testing has also been done with Synology NAS systems, but differences between NAS configurations, permissions and SMB implementations can still matter.

SFTP

Encrypted network backup using SSH/SFTP.

Host-key verification is supported, which means Backup Center verifies the SSH host key of the server before using it.

Setting up SFTP can be a little more challenging on some NAS systems. In particular, Synology DSM does not seem to provide an easy option in its interface to display the SSH host-key fingerprint.

A useful workaround was found by Community member Sunbeech:

If you use FileZilla, the fingerprint is shown when creating a new connection to an unknown SFTP server. For an existing connection, you can also inspect the connection information using the lock/security icon in the bottom-right corner of FileZilla.

Important: the fingerprint needed by Backup Center is the SSH/SFTP host-key fingerprint, not the fingerprint of the Synology HTTPS/TLS certificate.

Credits to Sunbeech for finding and sharing this workaround.

FTP

FTP support was added in v0.4.3 for devices and NAS systems where plain FTP is preferred.

FTP should only be used on a trusted local network, because FTP traffic — including the username and password — is not encrypted.

If you need an encrypted connection, use SFTP instead.

Important limitations

Backup Center is not a replacement for Homey’s official full backup and recovery solution.

It is a configuration backup and selective restore tool, not a complete Homey system image.

Radio pairings cannot reliably be reconstructed by the app, and missing physical devices are not automatically re-paired.

Insights

Homey Insights data is currently not included in Backup Center backups.

This is something that can be investigated further, but I do not want to promise support until it is clear that Insights data can be exported and restored reliably through the available APIs.

Logic and data from other apps

Standard Homey Logic variables are included in the backup.

Data maintained internally by third-party apps should not automatically be assumed to be included. For example, variables belonging specifically to an app such as Better Logic Library may require separate support depending on what that app and the Homey APIs make available.

Restore operations should still be approached carefully. Check the restore plan before applying changes, particularly when restoring configuration from an older backup.

Restore functionality requires a Homey API Key.

Saved API keys and network destination passwords are excluded from exported backup files.

However, backup files themselves should still be treated as private because configuration, settings and Flow arguments may contain sensitive information.

When reporting problems, please never publicly share API keys, passwords, private/local keys or complete backup files.

Credits & sources

This project builds on ideas and earlier work from the Homey community.

Special thanks to Mike_Nono for the original flow-backup work, Mike1233 for identifying issues around duplicate flow names, and SingKT for early practical findings around parsing and restoring flows.

Thanks also to Peter_Kawa for extensive testing and feedback around network backups, SMB2, SFTP and NAS compatibility.

And thanks to Sunbeech for testing Backup Center with Synology and for finding the FileZilla method to obtain the SSH/SFTP host-key fingerprint.

The official Homey Apps SDK and Homey Web API documentation have been used as technical references.

Restore functionality was then tested step by step on a real Homey rather than assuming that API documentation alone guaranteed successful recovery.

And of course, thanks to everyone else who tested the beta versions, reported unexpected behaviour or suggested improvements.

Feedback and testing are still welcome

Even though Backup Center is now publicly released, testing with different Homey models, NAS systems, apps, drivers, device settings and Flow configurations remains very valuable.

I’m especially interested in:

• Differences reported when nothing was actually changed (false positives)

• Device settings that are detected incorrectly

• Standard or Advanced Flows that don’t compare or restore as expected

• Unexpected behaviour with particular apps or drivers

• Restore verification failures

• SMB2, SFTP or FTP compatibility with different NAS systems

• Experiences with the selective restore workflow

• Ideas for making backups and restores safer or clearer

If something goes wrong, a description of what you changed, what Backup Center detected, what you selected for restore and what happened afterwards is extremely useful.

Please do not include passwords, API keys or complete backup files in public posts.

Feedback, bug reports and technical contributions are very welcome.

Thanks to everyone who helped test Backup Center and get it from the original beta to a public Homey App Store release!

[Mike_Nono]

Yes that sound good , but a link to the app might help

[Dennis_Weel]

Thanks for the tip. I attached the link in the post. Should be downloadable as of now! Hope to hear back from you!

[4x4_Pete]

Very interesting app!
Do you plan to make the source code available on GitHub?

[Peter_Kawa]

Test Test

It creates a backup and saves it to my WebDAV folder @ Synology NAS just fine.

Observations:
A.
While checking ‘Restore Plan’, it throws an error Payload Too Large.
The JSON file size is ~4,5MB, 146862 lines

B.
The Download button seems to not respond, no notifications at all. Tried with various browsers
(Android phone user)

[Mike_Nono]

Hi.
Well it scans and find the flows and stuff, but i can’t save anything to disk (firefox/chrome) or phone (android) it does nothing when I click on the buttons.

[SingKT]

Would be great to have all the texts at least in english

[Peter_Kawa]

@Dennis_Weel

Backups can be downloaded locally or stored using WebDAV

Any future plans for adding protocols like SFTP/FTPS and SMB?

@Dennis_Weel

Personal Access Tokens

I scratched my head a bit about this one, apparently you mean what Homey calls “API Keys”.

Maybe you could add it to the description, and where to find & create these?

[Dennis_Weel]

Thanks for your test. I’ll try to get it working. A new update is on its way.

[Dennis_Weel]

Thanks for the suggestion. Next build will be English/Dutch.

[Dennis_Weel]

Thanks for testing it out. We’ll try to figure it out. We’re building a new testbuild as we speak.

[Mike_Nono]

If you add smb/sftp.
Then if possible, add flow trigger card to make it possible to have scheduled backup to net shares

[Dennis_Weel]

What changed after the first community feedback?

The first beta testers already found several things that could be improved — and that feedback has now made it into 0.3.27.

Homey API Key terminology and guidance
Earlier versions referred to a Personal Access Token (PAT). Backup Center now follows Homey’s API Key terminology and includes built-in guidance for creating and testing the key.

Automatic WebDAV backups
Backups can now be scheduled for selected weekdays and a chosen WebDAV location. Failed automatic backups are retried, and Backup Center can notify the Homey owner when all attempts fail.

Large backups and improved downloads
The Restore Plan path has been changed to handle large backups in smaller chunks after a tester hit Payload Too Large with a ~4.5 MB backup. Download handling has also been reworked for browsers where the previous button appeared to do nothing.

These are exactly the areas where I’d particularly appreciate another round of testing.

Install Backup Center 0.3.27 Beta / Test

Homey Backup Center | Homey

This is a beta release. Please start with small, deliberate restore tests and report any unexpected behaviour.

[SingKT]

Created a backup. No chance to download it. Neither the download button nor the save url works.
Is it correct that once the app is closed the backup is no more available?
On start the app used ariund 88GB. After a backup it is ~92GB

[Dennis_Weel]

Thanks SingKT — very useful feedback.

The download issue is now definitely something I need to revisit. Another tester also reported problems with downloading, and if both the Download button and the generated save URL fail for you in 0.3.27, I consider that a confirmed issue rather than an isolated browser problem.

I’ll also check the lifecycle of locally generated backups. Ideally, creating a backup should not leave you in a situation where closing/reopening the app means losing access to it before you have actually been able to save it. I want to verify exactly how 0.3.27 currently handles this before giving you a definitive answer.

One small question about the memory usage: did you mean approximately 88 MB → 92 MB, rather than GB? If it really is GB, please let me know, because that would obviously be a very different issue.

If it is MB, I’ll still check whether memory used while generating a backup is properly released afterwards.

Thanks again — this is exactly the kind of real-world testing that helps.

[Dennis_Weel]

Thanks — I have now been able to reproduce this more clearly.

Saving the backup works for me when I use Backup Center through the Homey app on my iPhone, but it does not work reliably in a regular browser. On my MacBook the share/save interface can appear, but I cannot reliably retrieve the resulting file afterwards.

I can also confirm your other observation: after closing and reopening Backup Center, the generated backup is no longer available and I have to create/fetch it again.

So both points are now confirmed for further investigation:

• browser-based downloading/saving needs to be made more reliable and less dependent on the browser’s share functionality;
• the last generated backup should ideally remain available after reopening Backup Center, rather than immediately being lost with the UI session.

Saving through the Homey app on my iPhone does work, so the backup generation itself appears to be fine.

Thanks — your report helped me reproduce the difference between the Homey app and a regular browser.

[Mike_Nono]

It does not open a save dialog in a browser. (PC/Desktop)

But if you scroll down to the “open or save the file link” in the dialog.
And right click then save as, it will save to disk as a large .json file.
( Intended to save as a large .json file? )

On android app it will not do anything, except a small text saying “saving /sharing was cancelled”

[robertklep]

Given your obvious extensive use of LLM’s for posting here, I assume that your app is vibe-coded. Since it’s asking for permissions to fully control each user’s Homey, it would be nice to provide the source code of your app.
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[Dennis_Weel]

@robertklep

Given your obvious extensive use of LLM’s for posting here, I assume that your app is vibe-coded. Since it’s asking for permissions to fully control each user’s Homey, it would be nice to provide the source code of your app.

That’s a fair request.

I do use LLMs extensively during development, including for code analysis, implementation and documentation. I don’t want to hide that. At the same time, I’m testing the backup and restore functionality step by step on a real Homey rather than assuming generated code is correct.

But I agree with your main point: Backup Center requests powerful permissions because restoring a configuration requires write access to several Homey managers. For an app with that level of access, being able to inspect the source code is valuable.

[Dennis_Weel]

Hi Mike_Nono,

I’ve developed the original backup scripts further into the Homey Backup Center app. I’m now planning to publish the complete source code so the community can inspect, use, modify and improve it freely.

Since parts of the project originate from your original scripts, I don’t want to claim ownership of work that isn’t mine. Would you be happy for your original code, and the parts of this project derived from it, to be distributed under the MIT License?

You will of course be credited as the author of the original backup scripts. Other community members who contributed ideas, testing and fixes will also be credited.

Thanks again for making the original work available to the community.

Best,
Dennis