Hi all,
Note: Homey companion app is now approved and it is available here:
The Android app is still in “internal testing”, please read the section at the bottom of this post on how to proceed.
I’ve been working on this for a few months and it’s now at the point where I’d like a few more people to try it.
Short version: it lets you control a handful of your Homey devices from the car’s own screen. Not Android Auto, not the phone. My car (a Volvo) runs Android Automotive with the Google Play Store built in, and quite a few newer cars do the same, so I wrote a proper car app that talks to Homey.
There are two parts. The Homey app runs on your Homey Pro and that’s where you set everything up. Then there’s the car app itself, which you install from the Play Store in the car. The car app doesn’t know anything about your Homey except what you’ve chosen to show it.
What it does
The main screen is a grid of big tiles. You pick them in Homey: garage door, gate, front door lock, alarm, the EV charger, whatever makes sense for you. They show the current state and one tap toggles them.
There’s a lights tab with your lights grouped by room, on/off per light or the whole room, and a proper level screen for dimmers with steppers and presets. No sliders, Google doesn’t allow them while driving.
A scenes tab shows the Flows you’ve picked as buttons.
The part I’m most pleased with is the garage warning. The car keeps a geofence around your home (coordinates come from your Homey’s own location setting). If I drive off and the garage is still open, a notification appears in the car with a Close button. When I come back and it’s closed, I get an Open button. Pressing the button just does the action and the app doesn’t even have to be open. Been running on my car every day since mid-summer and it has been reliable, including with the car off overnight and after Play Store updates. You can leave this off if you don’t want the car using location.
Setting up
Everything is a whitelist. In the Homey app settings you tick the devices you want as tiles, tick the lights, tick the Flows, and drag the rooms into the order you like. Nothing else is visible to the car.
Pairing works with a code: generate one in Homey, type it in the car. The code is good for five minutes, and it locks after eight wrong tries. Every paired car gets its own token, and you can see them all in a small list in the settings with the car model, software version, last seen time, and buttons to rename or revoke. Handy if you have two cars or two driver profiles for the same car.
Privacy
The car talks to your Homey through the Homey cloud API over HTTPS with the pairing token, and that’s it. I don’t run a server and I don’t receive anything. Location is used on the car only and never leaves it. The Homey app needs the homey:manager:api permission because that’s how it reads device states and starts Flows for the car, and the geolocation permission to know where home is.
How to join the internal testing of the AAOS (Car app) - Google Play Store soon
You’ll need a Homey Pro and a car with Android Automotive and the Play Store on the centre screen. Google currently lists sixteen brands with Google built-in: Volvo and Polestar (most models from 2020 on), Renault (Mégane E-Tech, Scenic, R5, Austral and others), Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac and Buick (2022 on), Honda and Acura, Nissan and Infiniti, Ford and Lincoln (the newer Digital Experience system), Mazda (2026 CX-5), Mitsubishi in Europe, and BYD on some export models since 2025. Not every model of every brand has it. Quite a few cars run Android underneath but without the Play Store, and those won’t work: Mercedes (MB.OS), Audi, VW, Porsche and BMW have their own app stores, and so do Stellantis, Lucid and Rivian. The simple test: if there’s a Play Store icon on your car’s screen, it qualifies.
Quite a few cars run Android underneath but without Google built-in — BYD on most models, smart, MG and others — and the same goes for aftermarket Android screens and add-on computers like the Screenmate One for Tesla. Those run regular Android, not Android Automotive, so they won’t work with this version. A native version for exactly these systems is on the roadmap, same tiles and features; if you own one of them and would like to test it when the time comes, say so in this thread.
The car app is on Google Play’s internal testing track, so I need to add your Google account before it shows up in the car’s store. Send me a private message with the email address that’s logged into your car, I’ll add you and reply when it’s done. Please don’t put your email in this thread, it’s a public page.
If something breaks or you have ideas, this is the place.
Thank you everyone and cheers
