Big disappointment - will it change?

What I mean is, the app of Fibaro is much nicer then Homey.(I’m a HC3 user)

Well, you have to find the way you want to use it. I use the homey for ‘home away’ detection and to check some logs and trends.

Nearly everything in our house is programmed in advanced flows and automatically. From iCal calendar intergration and groceries to television, lights, airconditioning, heaters, screen, dryer, solar panels, fire Rota available service, cat feeders, etc.

This kind of ‘free’ implementation (choose what manufacturer you want for every device) I have never found in the homecenter. (So I still have a lot of fibaro stuff in our house).
Total devices here now around 325

Note; a lot of these options are made by our community developers :smiling_face::muscle::muscle:

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My experiences with our Smart Home (long story - you are not obliged to read).

All things I read about Z-wave Plus Fibaro connected to Homey sound like a déjà vu for me.
Started in the early 2010 with KaKu (X-10), KNX, HomeWizard, Nikko, DIY raspberry (now called HOOBS), I changed DIY gear to commercial gear which became then Fibaro HC-Lite.
I had issues long time with ALL brands, namely responsively to the controller! Z-Wave Plus, must be the solution, so that is the reason why i changed to HC-Lite… but unfortunately no cure, advise to go for the HC-2 to support Zwave-Plus … I was curious to the Homey-Ball… and yes I bought this one … and ran into almost same (…well you know…).

By accident a WiFi repeater broke down. And I thought it was time to change to some new maybe better WiFi gear? I choose the Orbi RK52 MESH with 3 satellites. UTP connected backhaul.
Next to this a simple TPLink x60 (broadcasting ONLY 2.4GHz) connected to the networking switch Netgear GS324, which was advised by a network integrator to run household appliances including all domotics using the 2.4GHz from the x60.

To my surprise all worked immediately astonishing well. No flacky connection between the Homey-Ball and sensors and all very responsive. (Even! battery powered sensors which I always had to bring close to the HC-2 or Homey-Ball to adjust the advanced settings, accepted the changes without taking them to the controller).

Now I am using the new Homey-Puck and the migration (ball 2 puck) went smooth only some Zigbee issues.
Running almost 3 months without any disruptions (knock on wood) ALL Fibaro, Neo Coolcam Z-Wave Plus modules are working like a charm, Motion Blinds with WiFi bridge, INNR Zigbee, lights run perfect! MQTT fast response.

Even!!! Last week we had an internet issue (ziggo maintenance) for 6 hours and Homey-Puck did it’s job without complaints advanced flows, manual operation all worked … and guess what NO message cannot find Homey :grin::grin: try later again. Kudos for those guys!

In my opinion whatever brand you own for home automation, all might be or is related to a stable and reliable WiFi connection. The base for a happy camper

Sorry for the long way of telling how important your WiFi is. Some indicators do respond on noise, and give young wrong! Signal strength. Check, double check. Before pointing any hardware which heavily rely on WiFi signal as not good…

My2 cents

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I haven’t been very satisfied yet either…

  1. No IR-Learning. I expected that i can use my IR driven ceiling fan/light with homey. I haven’t managed to do that yet since it is not listed in the supported devices.
  2. Broadlink-App is not yet updated and cannot act as and replacement for homey’s IR.
  3. No Group-Actions. I have a ceiling-light with 3 Tradfri RGB bulps. every action needs 3 flow-actions…
  4. No Standard-Flows or actions - i did not find a way to bind a switch to (a) bulp(s) with standard actions asigned. Needed to add flows even for turn on/off.
  5. Dimming with Tradfri: obviously there is no predefined way to dimm a bulp with log press. as i found in forums, you can add “trigger-flows” and define a child-flow that is running only when this trigger is executed. not very comfortable, not as it has been before with Dirigera.
  6. Sony Android-App does not work with my bravia-(android)-tv.
  7. Philips Hue only works with the Hue-Gateway. If you don’t have one, you’re forced to use the incomplete community app (e.g. tap-dial not supported)
  8. Nuki Smartlock needs to be enabled for remote access. this is something i’ve avoided so far for security reasons. Bluetooth-Access would be a solution.
  9. After buying a €400-thing (and yes this is expensive) you need to pay extra for things like advanced flows.

Conclusio: at the moment (yes i know it’s beta…) it takes a lot of time to setup homey and it is not granted that you have the same service-quality as before with other gateways.

After starting with homey i run from one problem to the other. i had realy great expectations, but they weren’t met yet. Even a beta should be able to handle basic functions like dimming, pairing of devices,…

In my opinion, Homey Pro has great potential. but the current status still has a lot of room for improvement. I would have asked for more for the price - even for a beta.

I’m new to homey and it is possible that i have not found some tricks yet but after reading the posts before, it is time to ask athom for a little bit more speed in development.

wolfgang

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Judging from the rest of your message, you are talking about Homey Pro (early 2023), then you could have known before hand that that Homey pro version has no IR receiver.

You mean things like the app <group> doesn’t work for you?

This is by design, as you now have 1001 options to add to your flows instead of just on an off (it is just a way of thinking).

Have you contacted the developer yet? or tried any of the other android apps.

Just because 1 of your devices isn’t supported in the app, the app doesn’t work at all?
But feel free to add support for the tap-dial in the Hue without the hub app, as the source code is publicly online.

If you bought the Homey Pro (early 2023), which again it does look like it, then advanced flow is already part of it, nothing has to be bought, the only thing you could optionally buy is the backup option (10 euro’s a year or 1 euro per month), but as local backup is an option it isn’t even mandatory.

Feel free to go work at Athom, they are still looking for new developers as they are working at their maximum capacity already in terms of speed. (good developers are hard to come by)

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Sony Android TV is in progress now…

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thank you for your comprehensive answer, Caseda!

you are completly right, Homey Pro early 2023!

is a top tipp - i’ll have an eye on that!! I hadn’t realized that an app can also be used in this way.

standard-flows: pairing of devices (e.g. switch and bulb) could add this (if offered)

hue: of course the app is working! that was more due to the fact that the official version only works with the hue bridge. i’d love to add support for this & that - but i’m new to homey and never done this before.

advanced flows: in this case i missunderstood it completly - I apologize!

  1. No IR-Learning. I expected that i can use my IR driven ceiling fan/light with homey. I haven’t managed to do that yet since it is not listed in the supported devices.

You could try to resolve that by adding an IR remote like the Switchbot mini hub (or another brand), The IR remote connects to homey and the fan.

i have tried so… have 2 RM from Broadlink, which have been supported before (but not early 2023)

I think the Broadlink app isn’t updated to 2023 by the community developer, you could send them a message and ask if they want to do that of course or maybe if he can share the “code” and ask another developer to help you update it.

[Homey Pro (Early 2023)] App unsupported list states it has discontinued support

Thanks. I’m trying to have everything not dependent on wifi … so Homey Pro is connected via ethernet and wifi is on just sometimes. The problem with the Mote switch is some incompatibility one, I think.

I see. I’m a HC2 user and had big hopes about Homey Pro. Maybe they will still succeed to fulfil them. Are you happy with HC3? Does everything work finally? Zigbee, etc?

I totally agree with the first posts, zwave is a reliable network but Homey is not performing.

When I was running Vera (2013) the Zwave network was reliable and responsive.Then I switched to HC3 (2020) and still the network was working excellent.

My network consists of 33 Zwave devices. When I added the first devices it was working great. Adding more devices results in slower responses, losing connection to the fartest devices in the network which were working great when I had less then 10 devices connected.

Also getting real problems with adding devices (all fibaro dimmers or switches). The more devices are added the less it is working. Currently i got connected with 25. But now it is almost impossible to add new devices. Homey is simply not responding after the first green tick. Or it comes back with a message saying that the process failed.

So you had Fibaro HC3? Why you switched to Homey then? I have HC2, but it became a bit old. I was thinking about HC3 or Homey Pro, HC3 had some feedback that zigbee is not working and maybe never will and I was convinced by Apple-like presentation of Homey CEO … Would you recommend HC3? But … I still hope Homey Pro will perform.

Based on info on homey website Homey Pro have IR:

Sending Infrared is also still part of infrared, receiving IR is also part of infrared, but still a bit different, which it doesn’t support as it has no IR receiver at all.
The included database is pretty big, and developers could still create apps for it, just no learning in new signals by copying a remote control.

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Hi!

I’ve HC3 too.
It is a really good SmartHome center. Works well.
Just…
1, Zigbee is in beta. For a long time now, and we do not see the end.
2, ZW engine 3.0 is in beta. For a long time now, and we do not see the end.
This is a problem because it do not support a lot of Z-Wave features now…
3, HC3 has a 500 series z-Wave chip. The newest model is the 800…. This is a big gap…

Buy a cheap Switchbot hub and control any IR device you want…

Thank you, Milan. I see nothing is perfect yet. I still hope homey Pro will make it.

OK, maybe I’m too fast and impatient, but seriously thinking about https://hubitat.com/