A Story of embracing Homey with over 60 devices

Devices
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Users’ stories can often be useful to understand a product or find specific solution, so after a few weeks of adopting homey as my main home automation hub here is my journey.

Disclaimer: I’m French, it’s a long post, expect mistakes :smiley:

I’ve used HomeKit at the center of my apartment for years now, leveraging Home Bridge and Home Assistant here and there for some devices. Interacting with Siri to control anything is part of my day to day. But having to use Home Bridge and Home Assistant for so many devices, as well as the heaviness of those interfaces, made me consider other options (and apple automation flow isn’t great)… and here comes LTT’s video to trigger my interest :wink:

Ordered a Homey Pro + Network Adapter (always preferred wire over wireless) and started my journey, device per device.

Lights : Philips Hue

As expected everything was very smooth here, all lights (over 20) worked without any issue, so did the switchs.

I re created my automation from Home app (Apple) to Homey, and it was so nice to have a clean visual interface (especially for Advanced Flows).

Right now I think I’ll end up removing the Philips Hub completely and link everything to the Homey Pro directly, less items is always better.

Lights II : Ikea

I’ve decided to try the « hub less » road and removed my Dirigera Hub completely, issuing the IKEA Tradfri app to connect directly my Ikea IRSTA lights and STYRBAR remote with Zigbee. No issue here either, and having a full control on the remote behavior is great ! I might get more remote in the future as the STYRBAR is among the cheapest Zigbee remote/button I’ve found for now.

Lights III : Elgato

I have a small Elgato setup (2 Key Lights, 1 Ring Light, 1 Stream Deck+). I used to control it with Home Assistant and have it bridged to HomeKit. Integration was great for the the Key Lights, but the Ring wasn’t supported… untel the Elgato Lights App dev answered my request and in about a few hours the device was supported in Experimental mode (now released I believe). Super cool :slight_smile: The Stream Deck integration was a bit different as the guide to integrate it isn’t super clear, but in the end I managed to get it working and sending command to Homey through it is nice as I usually use in during calls at my desk !

Lights IV : Ikea+Sonoff

In my bathroom I have a mirror cabinet with led lights from Ikea (STORJORM) that isn’t connected, so I hacked the power block to add a small Sonoff ZBMini in it and, as expected the connection with the Sonos App went smoothly, which allowed me to control it back with my Philips remotes already installed. Before I used to have it linked as a « generic » plug in the Philips Hue official app, but it wasn’t needed anymore.

Rolling Shutters : Somfy TaHoma

My Shutters are radio controlled (IO Technology) so they have dedicated remotes and a connection to a dedicated hub (Somfy TaHoma), which have its own Homey app, so integration was without any issue again. You can’t get information on the remotes (battery…) but neither in the official app, so that’s fine.

Speaker : Sonos

Not my main audio setup, but I have 2 in stereo mode so why not, Integrated without issue with the official Homey App (but I rarely use them)

Other random devices with direct support :

  • Eve Door & Window sensor : Direct integration after MATTER update + Eve App
  • Eve Motion : Direct integration after MATTER update + Eve App
  • Eve Weather : Direct integration after MATTER update but not with Eve App
  • Bambu Lab 3D Printer X1C : Supported
  • Divoom 64 Pixel Display : Supported (and makes it super easy to send image to it, which required heavy work on my side through scripting and API tinkering before, loving it !)
  • iRobot Roomba : Same smooth integration
  • Samsung SmartThings Devices : Over, Microwave Oven, Washing Machine and Dryer all report their status perfectly, still require the official app to send command, but it’s enough to have what I need)
  • Levoit / Vesync Humidifier : Once again, Homey app means complet support, I can now trigger it by using other humidity sensors instead of the integrated one (which is better for room control).
  • Playstation 5 : Game console : Not as simple as some other integration but work.

Now it’s time to go through the devices that required a bit more work… I didn’t expect « everything » to be perfect, and to be clear, that part doesn’t, in the end, impact how much I enjoy my Homey Pro :slight_smile:

Heathers : Intuis Connect

My heaters have modules linking them together for control through an official app or with usual services (Google, Alexa, and HomeKit). I used to control them with HomeKit but HomeKit Controller App didn’t seem to properly list all options, so I used the long road : Added them in Home Assistant and tried to get them back in Homey with the Home Assistant App, but I didn’t get to proper information here either. So I’ve created an HomeKit Bridge in Home Assistant, and then used this bridge with Homey HomeKit Controller, which worked great this time :slight_smile:

Powerstrip : Meross MSS425FHK

A different story here, there is a Homey app for Meross devices, but due to what seems to be an API issue on Meross side it doesn’t seem to work anymore (even on the official Meross IOS app apparently), but lucky for me the version I have is the HomeKit compatible one, so I used the power plugs once again with HomeKit Controller and it worked well, except for the fact that the USB plugs on it can’t be controlled (not reported), while the 4 « normal » plugs are working well as expected. Not perfect, but good enough.

TV : LG OLED

I have 2 TV, both from LG, 55C7 and 65CX, they have a dedicated Homey app, but I had some issues we turning one off or on also turn the other one. It now seems to be fixed (maybe I did something) but anyway I need a feature that isn’t exposed in the official Homey app which is to turn off the screen output (but not the TV) as I use eArc to get audio from a weird vinyle setup (won’t go into detail here). So in addition to using the Homey App I also added the TV on Homebridge (still…) to expose this specific feature. Homey support told me they added it there todo, so maybe it’s only temporary :slight_smile: It’s a small point, but while I believe the « simple » way features and data is exposed is absolutely the right way to go, it’s important to have an « advance » section were EVERYTHING that can be exposed or controlled is, for situations like this (same for Service mode button for example…)

Game console : Xbox Series X

I gave up on the Homey Apps :smiley: The creation of token and the various unique id were a bit of a mess, and in the end I added it to HomeAssistant and the Home Assistant Homey App. I’m sure this console (and the PlayStation 5) deserve an official Homey integration with much simpler flow.

Security : Unifi Protect

The Homey app for Unifi Protect is nice, but the Homebridge version is SO much better integrated with Apple Home system that I’ve decided not to link it Homey in the end. I may add it back on the side « just fo reference » later.

Sensors : Eve Room

The Eve Room sensor are not Matter compatible yet, but should work through HomeKit Controller, and they are, but are only reporting humidity instead of all the data. They are also not compatible with the Homey Eve App, so I added them on Home Assistant and they through the Home Assistant Homey App.

Lights V (yes, what were you expecting ?) : BLE MLEK LED Strip

I have 2 cheap random Chinese led strip which are compatible with IR remote and BLE, but no Homey app seems to support them. For reference they use the « LotusLamp X » app on mobile, and are supported in Home Assistant with the « elkbledom » extension. So once again I still needed Home Assistant here as a “passthrought”.

Power Usage tracking : Linky + TicMeter

In France our electric meter got a connector to grab the data of power usage (among other things). So there are multiple device to do that and a few month ago I back a kickstarter for one with multiple connection : Zigbee, MQTT, Wifi server, Tuya. Tried Zigbee at first but while it connected I only got « total usage » which isn’t super useful. Tried to understand how MQTT or Zigbee2MQTT worked (never used MQTT) with Homey, but in the end I gave up on anything direct, added it on Home Assistant (it has auto discovery) with MQTT mosquito, and then used Homey Home Assistant to integrate it. That being said, the « current usage » which is the most important information for me wasn’t supported as an indicator OR in data tracking, so I used « Device Capabilities » Homey App to create a virtual sensor directly connected to that value, which gives me exactly what I needed :slight_smile:

Smart Display : Sonoff NSPanel Pro

The NSPanel Pro is a small screen (actually an underpowered android device) I previously used with Home assistant to control things (also more accessible than Siri for some people), or display charts/ current state of the home without having to use my phone. Since it’s a very hacky android setup I managed to install Homey APK and get it to log (no support for Google Connect as the device doesn’t respect Google security guidelines, so I needed another normal account linked to my home) and it work-ish. It’s often very slow and not really confortable. For now I’ll probably only use it to track my power usage. (Web Homey isn’t working well either)

Bed : Eight Sleep Pod 4

Probably the one I miss the most, but I know they are bad at opening access to the device information. Even using the Home Assistant community extension temperature isn’t “normal” and not easily exposed/controlled, so I gave up on it. for now.

And that’s pretty much it !

While some devices need a bit of work with Homebridge or Home Assistant I’m very happy with the final result and hope little by little I’ll be able to unplug those two too. After that I use the « beta » HomeKit integration to share everything to Home on iOS and did a bit of clean up by removing the exposition of a few devices that didn’t report proporly (like the Heaters, so I did another bridge in home assistant and setup this one directly in parallel to the one to Homey).

Since the Homey is a CM4 I would love a support for dockers so that I could have everything on the same device for now, but overall I can know build advance flows with pretty much any device !

Fell free to ask / talk should you have ideas on how to do things better or question on some of the devices I’m using

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Hey! thanks for taking the time to write up a big post for the community. Hopefully some people add more comments over the next couple of days.

Overall, it seems like things went pretty smooth for you which is awesome to hear. I have some comments that I will elaborate on but please don’t take any of them as gospel. If something is working for you, don’t let me rain on your parade :slight_smile:

Number one, my biggest recommendation for you that goes against what I literally just typed, is DO NOT pair your Hue bulbs directly to Homey. I know that it’s technically possible, but I believe I can make a good case as to why you should keep the hub.

  • assuming you’re using real hue bulbs, ditching the hub means you cannot easily take advantage of bulb effects (candle flicker, rainbow cycles, syncing, etc). People have tried to hack it and imo the hacks do not look anywhere as good as the official Hue effects.
  • bulbs have a bad habit of being turned off accidentally at the wall. If the bulbs are paired to homey directly, they can be used as Zigbee repeaters. This might sound like a good thing until you have some Zigbee devices that are used to relaying through the bulbs and then someone accidentally turns off the bulb at the switch and now your devices at the end of the mesh chain start to act flaky. Ask me how I know! By segregating all of your bulbs into the a Zigbee mesh of only other bulbs, I’ve found everything to operate much more reliably.
  • Zigbee meshes can have too many devices. This goes to the previous point as well. By using two separate networks, you can pair more Zigbee devices to Homey directly and not overload the network. For your apartment, it’s probably never going to be relevant but you never know about the future!
  • the Hue hub is actually pretty good. Their integration and local API is extremely responsive and whatever secret sauce they have works very well. Adding new devices to homey is as simple as re-adding the app to Homey and it’s smart enough to show you new devices that were added since the last time the bridge was synced to homey. The hue hub is also useful to keep your bulb firmware up to date and Philips does add features occasionally!
  • Finally, you can pair a lot of other Zigbee bulbs to the Hue bridge. I have about a dozen ikea bulbs paired as well as about 6 genuine hue bulbs. They operate just like the Hue ones and the only missing feature is that they aren’t compatible with effects.

That was a lot for just point number one!

Number 2: if you have home assistant already setup and it does some things well for you, I would probably leave it running. There are some devices that just are likely never going to be a priority for Homey as you’ve discovered. Some devices have hamstrung functionality when using generic device drivers and were purpose built for use with proprietary apps. Many times, the HA integrations are reversed engineered versions and have all of the features available. If you want to integrate them with Homey, there is an app to link HA and you can install a different Homey app to create your own custom devices and then use webhooks or the HA rest api to communicate between the systems. Sure, it’s less convenient, but for some devices, it might be worth it.

Number 3: consider a Bond controller for your game consoles! I think that might work but don’t quote me on it. Or maybe you need a CEC compatible audio setup to automatically turn on the tv if you turn on a game controller?

Number 4: read the megathreads about creating advanced flows. There are a few footguns that you can easily drive yourself crazy with. For me, learning how to setup zones to take advantage of “Zone activity” was a big helper to simplifying the logic I needed to write for basic lighting automations! Also, don’t forget that zones can be nested :nerd_face:

Homey just really launched in the US early this year but they’ve been active in Europe for a while now. The LTT video was great marketing and I hope it brings in more developers and end users to drive new features. I use it precisely because I value the cohesive design language and “just works” philosophy but that always comes with trade-offs in regards to features and compatibility. It will always take longer for Homey to get a certain feature or work with a new device, but if enough people want it, I’m confident that it will eventually be supported.

Happy to answer any more questions but I’ll admit that I’m not nearly as experienced as some people on the forum here. I do find this community to be helpful and knowledgeable overall, just don’t hold it against all of the Dutchies if they’re a bit blunt :wink:

Happy automating!

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Thanks for the reply, I use 0 scene from Philips, but the take about the amount of devices per hub is enough to make me NOT link them directly :slight_smile:

For now I plan to keep home assistant but I’d love not to have it on a separated device, that’s why a docker support would be nice.

I really hate CEC it never behave how I want (especially with all inputs trying to get control and not all devices giving the same level of priority over the others), so I’ll keep my current flow even if it’s not perfect.

Once again I’m super happy with my experience (as an “advanced-ish” user), and I may deploy it in family houses.