A little disappointed with Homey (Pro)

Devices
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Ok. Here’s a new user; When I first begun my journey with home automation; my choice was Hass, it was way back, when they just had managed to create their first effort in getting a camera providing rtsp feed, to show on Apple’s HomeKit. It was pretty unstable, but possible.

Eventually I decided to leave Hass; it was too much trouble, sometimes “more” is also more work. Next I chose the easy way, and went with Tuya. I know, I know, everybody thinking here that all my feeds etc was shared with unknown 3rd parties, etc; but I didn’t care that, as it was a small price for something that worked pretty well.

Lately I had to renew my (video) doorbell, and I decided to choose Aqara.. Which is a little outside of Tuya, so I then decided to start renewing the whole system, and I chose Homey, because it seemed easy and effortless, I dreaded a lot about it, including many reviews; YouTube was total crap, I found 2 types of reviews- other’s saying that Homey beats anything anywhere and anytime, and others.. Well, they seemed to be people who can accept only HASS as their choice, it seemed that it didn’t matter, whether they were reviewing Hubitat, Homey or what ever..

Anyway, I then chose shiny Homey Pro and have been experimenting with it now for a week. My reasons to choose Homey, was that it seemed to support… Well pretty much everything that I already have.. Except Tuya cameras.. Well, they were bunch of crap anyway, I bought some general Chinese onvif/rtsp cameras (on their way), since there is a onvif app… And to outside, I chose Foscam, which also had an app; Perfect.

Well; not so much then after all.. While doing some testing with Aqara’s doorbell, I noticed that I wasn’t able to get feed to work.. And while searching for help, on how to achieve that, ugly truth comes out; supported cameras.. Only support still shots. Explanation is also quite clear why, but this was news for me- I think Homey is quite expensive, and you might think it would support cameras and possibly be able to do great things with them… Nope. Why on earth, on none of those videos that I watched, or reviews that I readed, wasn’t this mentioned. I even readed a lot about building home security around Homey(pretty lousy articles on the subject, but still…) - and a huge silence that there’s no decent support for cameras? On this criteria, I am not that disappointed on the device itself, more on the marketing and reviewers. I could had come here to the forum to ask about it, but I kinda took it as a no-brainer that camera’s are supported on one of the major home automation systems that also pack support for security system features as well.

Project became a lot more expensive at this point, as I purchased a mini computer that I am planning to run frigate nvr, to compensate lack of camera support. There’s app for frigate as well, high hopes here that it’s good. We’ll see when new gear arrives and I have time to set up everything..

So, to the next disappointment. That’s not completely Homey related, but now that I am moving away from Tuya; maybe detach from Tuya network as well then? There were few projects that help with that.. Tuya convert and cloud clutter.. To the first device, a rgb-ic led strip.. Both failed, inside there was a ubc chip, capable of running wled propably.. But I managed to break it during study. So more money, and a pre-flashed wled version of same device from China is on the way now.
So, I also have Moes thermostats, and there is wbecathermostat alternative firmware, maybe I can flash those without dismantling… No, no I couldn’t, both methods fail. Becoming frustrated here, because I wasn’t planning to re-new everything.. Finally, I found a device from my house that I was able to flash with these methods, it’s a simple breaker that can be used to replace a switch in the table lamp or similar applications. Got ESPHome Kickstarter on it, and quite soon I wanted to replace it with OpenBeken, even though I never had used either of these before. Flashing OpenBeken on it, had its own difficulties, I had to get OTA firmware in uf2 format. Conversions failed. Eventually I found an older firmware version already in that format, flashed that and then upgraded, voila. New difficulties then. Switch doesn’t work. I tried available templates of similar devices without success, and eventually I just started testing and found all 3 features (led, relay and switch/button) and got it to work.

Okay, now I need it in Homey Pro. So mqtt is the way, right? That’s gonna be a breeze.. WRONG! There are few mqtt apps. A full server suite, which was pretty useless, I wasn’t able to make any use of it at all. I mean, my new light switch successfully manages to use it, but that’s about that, I wasn’t able to make a device of any kind to Homey Pro with it. I eventually did succeed, I used MQTT Broker and MQTT Client, and virtual device (from App with more templates for devices), and then made 2 of my first (advanced) flows, which were quite complex.

First one checks if virtual device state changes, then it checks if device is named “desktop lamp” and in that case, it writes to variable “Path” correct Topic, and after that, it checks what is the new state and writes variable “TextValue” either “1” or “0” and then uses MQTT Client to send the message.. Works..

I made it like this, so I could add other devices here as well with their topics..

And the next one, I made it so that when mqtt receives state update, it checks the topic and value and sets device either on or off. This then show’d me a nightmare that I am having in front of me. As topic must be on the “when” that starts this, and as I cannot have a map/valuepair array of my devices, I will need to duplicate this to EVERY device. How frustrating!

Oh, and I tried Tasmota mqtt, but cannot get my device to be detected with it.

Ideal mqtt solution would be that I could set up a MQTT device, which I could give topics and and values that would be mapped to switch states, but this won’t work. There was a one app that gave something similar.. But it didn’t work, light didn’t go on, and its state was not monitored properly. Only flow that I did was able to work this out, but I have no plans to setup all those, so lucky me, I have only 1 device in this state.

Bad news, I have bought more stuff. Some work with MQTT :frowning:

What I am quite pleased, is that Tuya app works quite nicely. Even though setup was a nightmare. But eventually, it did work. But it is just using Tuya cloud to achieve that, which is what I am trying to detach..

Homey Pro supports RF.. Yeah, that didn’t work out either. I have my previous Tuya based security system which uses rf433 motion detectors and door sensors. They are all going to need a replacement, as rf433 requires an app for the device support, which wasn’t available for my sensors, nice. Once again, could this be marketed that it supports SOME rf433 from few major manufacturers?

So, I need 6 new thermostats, 7 door sensors, 5 of those breaker style switches, a new mini computer to run frigate nvr, 4 relay system for power cycling some stuff (outdoor cameras, indoor cameras, outdoor router..) to make sure they are up and running when I need them.. A LOT of light switches… New door lock… And more. I thought Homey Pro was expensive. It wasn’t, I already have tripled what it costed and I am still far from transition to Homey Pro.

Homey Pro is also advertised as effortless.. It’s far from that. It would be effortless, if apps would work perfectly but most of them lack documentation on how to use them, they only come with list of states and actions available for flows, but you need to get it up and running first and there’s very little help for that available. It wouldn’t be needed, if it would be effortless and if everything would work. There even isn’t a way to get a log of app to help see what the issue is.

Also on videos, flows looked perfect. But to tell you the truth, using them, is very slow. I struggled while building my first flows and as I have some experience with programming, I was hoping that HomeyScript would come to the rescue, but I found out, that it’s quite limited too; couldn’t make it talk with Apps. Also, that is another thing that is missing proper documentation. Nice, you can output hello world, but I wanted to interact with mqtt and that’s what was way too difficult (without docs). Okay, maybe I can enable ssh shell and see what’s going on… No I can’t, I am inside a container. I wonder what it can be used for, because I couldn’t find any good use for it.

And there’s more. I’ll put here a very short review and what everyone thinking about going for Homey should think before actually doing it:

  • Device support is quite limited, check Best Buy guides. There’s some supported devices, and all of them are from the higher price range. But if you already have those devices or have deep pockets…
  • Despite what is said, it’s not easy, it’s not fast and it’s more limited than it appears.
  • Documentation is VERY poor.
  • After a while of studying, you can link with HomeKit, and with some effort, you can link from HomeKit to Homey too, nice. Not very simple though.

Now, I do have some questions, since I need new devices.. And try to get them cheaper than Best Buy guide provides.

Do you think I could get this thermostat working effortless:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008488780954.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.111.38025905uiQVbF&algo_pvid=a233c3a7-66d3-480e-a448-3e0e1c08e263&algo_exp_id=a233c3a7-66d3-480e-a448-3e0e1c08e263-56&pdp_ext_f={"order"%3A"1"%2C"eval"%3A"1"}&pdp_npi=4%40dis!EUR!30.60!27.99!!!33.98!31.08!%40210384cc17451684630087500eefe0!12000045367741637!sea!FI!128437593!X&curPageLogUid=K3VtuowuUnoR&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch|query_from%3A

It says it’s matter…

For door sensors, I plan to use: Sonoff’s Zigbee SNZB-04
Is that going to be a nightmare?

And then, for those breaker switches.. I want to use Sonoff’s basic R4’s.. Any problems ahead?

I also am going to receive 2 nspanel’s (not pro), was that a miss or can I display something on those? How about interaction? Other one is pre-flashed with alternative firmware, so can’t say much about that for now.

Oh, for the lock, I plan to have Yale Doorman L3. It is said that it’s supported, but once again, no info available. Do I need Yale’s hub or does it work directly with Homey?

So that’s for now…

3 Likes
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I can imagine that if you are moving away from one or more existing platforms to Homey, the puzzle on which devices are supported is more complex then when starting from scratch.

Nevertheless, in my experience, if you want to find out if a specific device is supported by Homey, you can take a look at:

  • The app page in the Homey App Store for the respective brand. It lists the supported devices. Typically, a brand specific app is needed to add support for devices.
    For some types of devices (like Zigbee devices) Homey offers basic functionality via a basic driver (like only switching on/off a device). For matter devices you normally would not need a Homey app. However actual support depends on how matter is implemented in the device and only regards capabilities that are part of the matter standard.
  • The dedicated app section on this community forum. This is also the place to ask questions on supported devices/ask the developer to add support for new devices. For official apps (non-community apps) you can find the developer contact details on the respective app store page.

Of course there are also the Best Buy Guides you are referring to, though they do not represent the full set of supported devices.

It still remains a puzzle, but these two main sources have helped me a lot in the past on deciding which devices to buy and which to stay away from as they are not supported.

2 Likes
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That’s indeed a BIG problem.
It’s took a lot of time to understand JSON possibility’s.
Often fortuitously in an other tread.
So I found-out that you can by Homey-script only send 1 item from a flow cart. By more needed use JSON form.

For using:
Advanced Virtual Device (more versions)
MQTT
IcalCalender
and more
I have to read all those treads from the beginning to get in to it.
Some user ask where the Homey-script documentation was to find. Still no answer.

The mob-dashboard and now the P1 dongel is taking to much time for other things.
Old flow-card loosing a part of there start possibility’s.
App makers get in trubbel because of the gap between what normal user used and what Athom is making.

For now I can do what I like to do. But there is a time that Athom make it to difficult for the what elderly people.

1 Like
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Yes, but disappointment to Homey increased when the fight with mqtt begun; After all, mqtt support is something that should be working flawlessly out of the box and actually almost be there without installing anything extra, since for so many devices it is the common way to communicate; like early version of matter, mqtt was what was used when I first moved to Tuya from HASS, it’s not something that would be explicitly a method of communication for one brand, instead it’s open and universal- situation is like with a fridge that would work just fine, except for food, without enormous amount of work, it couldn’t cool or keep your food cold, but don’t worry, if you place your clothes there, you will get very nice +4c clothes to wear for the next morning when you go to work..

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t vouch for mqtt, not a big fan, never was, but now when I had to re-visit mqtt after years with Tuya, it seems so disappointing that device that is very expensive, can’t handle even that. It’s like a Ferrari, very nice and fast car, but if you are never allowed to drive more than 120km/h and roads near place you live are mostly gravel, it might feel a bit over-priced and redundant.

About devices:

I have a (tuya) Zigbee wall switch, which is working out-of-the-box without any app, on Homey Pro, as an unknown device, but provides a switch function. So I just set it to lights class to get a wanted symbol for it.

Yes, Homey not needed for Matter. But it is. I plan to use (as an interface), Apple’s HomeKit, but for automations I want to use something else (or use both), where Homey comes handy. This way, I also can setup devices that I want to “hide” from HomeKit, rarely used- or used with something else, where Homey’s automation can bind these 2 to one.

Theo_de_koning:
Yes, lack of all documentation gives also impression that everything works perfectly, out of the box, apple experience.. But then it is so far from it, and you still can’t find documentation.

Out of the topic, but If you need to use json somewhere else, I provide a very nice json library for c++: GitHub - oskarirauta/json_cpp: C++ JSON library

1 Like
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Okay, I’m done with it. No, not with Homey; I have invested too much on it to bail out this soon.. But the mqtt stuff. I was able to create a very nice combination of Flow and HomeyScript, but only half of it; When it came to sending message to turn on/off the light with mqtt, that’s where my luck ran out- virtual device didn’t have a tag for zone, which was something that I kinda had to have. So I put up a development environment, forked Virtual Devices and added that to there, but unfortunately it doesn’t work. So, now I think I have wasted way too much time on this. If Sonoff basic r4 works, it is about 11 euros- and now I have spent 2 days to build up something that I am not happy with, so it’s not worth going on with it.

I am setting up a separate thread where I ask if my planned devices are supported or is someone recommending another solution and trying to stay in budget models..

6

Here’s another failure.. Now I am a little more disappointed with Homey. Not good. Not good at all.

I wanted to setup a dashboard and homey.ink seems super nice. So, I go to purchase an Aura HD to go for it; just to find out that homey.ink is broken. Not very good start when so many things seem to be badly broken. I found alternarive, homeydash; but it doesn’t look good at all on monochrome (epaper/eink) display.

I probably could set up a server of my own, to run homeydash, as it’s source is available; but that kinda seems to give up the point of using Homey at all; this is supposed to be “all-in-1” hub (as long as you choose your devices carefully); on another thread, I asked if users are sure that device I am thinking about, will definitely work- because I just don’t feel that I could trust that it really does just because on app, whether it was official or community version, it says it is supported.. Huge waste of money, and I am not talking here about price of Homey Pro, I am talking about waste of money that comes with use of Homey when you want to extend your Homey with devices and then you find out that they don’t work after all.

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Did you consider using the build in Dashboard functionality (e.g. on an iPad or Android tablet)? Homey comes with several widgets and also community apps provide widgets to create dashboards.

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Absolutely not. It is out of the question, as I don’t want my device to use backlight or pay attention with colors etc. I want it to hang on a wall, as invisible until I want to see it. This is where homey.ink beats all those other solutions any day. No colors, no glares from displays, etc. Just plain info display, and it doesn’t even need to be very prompt, data refreshed once in 30 minutes.. Or maybe even every hour, is often enough. What I’d like to see is that when did my son leave to school on a day when he was late… Or what is the approximated (since it was a hour ago or so) outdoor temperature.. And other stuff that I haven’t had a chance to figure out, since system didn’t work.

No flashing lights or bright colors, this isn’t a disco.. I thought about nspanel pro at one moment, but decided that it definitely isn’t the way I want to go. Mostly since it runs with Android and I’d change my TV any day to “dumb” model if they still would be available for sale (ofcourse with current picture quality) because of a very bad experience with Android devices (oh, one or two Lenovo phones fit to the category as well, I use them as a “spare” phone, if my own phone is in service or other-wise unusable, and oh, even though they are very little used, they take ages to start and using them is real pain). I have 3 Sony TV’s, all running with Android TV (or whatever they named it), where 2 of them are totally un-usable, luckily Apple TV helps, just takes ages it to switch to it’s input.. And newest one.. Well, it’s still usable, but I have Apple TV on that too, since it’s just a matter of time. But yeah, for info display.. ePaper/eInk display would be perfect. It also provides a great battery life.

Oh, and I do have 2 NSPanels, not Pro models though. Not using them for anything now though, but eventually I’ll probably can think of something for them.

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In principle the display technology is separate from the dashboard technology. However, currently in Homey, both are often related/packed into one solution.

If Homey’s dashboard functionality would also be available in its web app, then you would be able to display it on any computer / display, including e-ink displays (whether in black & white or with colors).

In the past there have been initiatives like Homey.ink and smpl, but those have been decommissioned I believe.

Would be great indeed if you could simply connect any e-ink display and display whatever Homey info to your liking.

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I possibly found a solution; requires some work though..
There’s app for hosting a minimal web server on Homey. Not sure if it’s gonna work out, but at least app advertises that it might have functions that allow me to pass data from Homey to it; and it that case I am possibly able to export it to a page, for example if I can pass it as a json and can have Ajax script that fetches it, parses and then show’s it on the page displayed on ebook reader’s browser.. That would also be completely local solution.