Basic Questions how Homey app works

Questions & Help
, ,
1

Hi,
I couldn’t find some basic answers so I am summarizing them here and I might get answer from community.

  1. If I have just Homey app on my phone and I am using various smart devices on WiFi (from various vendors e.g. D-Link, Xiaomy, etc) it is just connecting to these via local network? Or is it like these inbuilt apps just add support for this vendor clouds?

  2. I could find this “Choose your Homey.” and there is WiFi Support just on Homey Pro device. It is so that I need this big glowing ball to connect WiFi(Bluetooth) devices to this mobile app even if my smartphone have these capabilities?

Thanks

2
  1. It depends, some Homey integrations (“apps”) can connect to WiFi devices locally, some only work through the vendor cloud servers. The app page will usually say how it connects. For some brands, local connections only work using unofficial (not endorsed by the vendor) methods.
  2. What “WiFi Support” actually means is that Homey Pro supports connecting to networked devices locally if the Homey app supports this. Homey Bridge does not support local connections at all.

Just to be clear: Homey (almost) always has to have specific support for devices, and it doesn’t matter if you have the vendor app running on your phone or not. It’s completely separate, the Homey mobile app is just there to control your Homey.