After watching the keynote, it was announced that for the new cloud version, developers have to pay. Is this just for extra support? I can imagine devs not supporting their apps if this is true because they are already building the apps for free.
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That is not people they try to target.
They offer this to bussiness who want to connect there devices to homey. For a little payed support
I just went back to the keynote and it says âPublish for cloudâ and they say it allows access to publish to the cloud, so the wording is⌠Not that good, I really hope Homey will clarify.
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On the developer page, the text is pretty clear: If you want to publish to cloud, you need to have a verified (paid) account:
IIRC, that wasnât there when I checked. I run a lot of apps that are maintained by the community, not having those would make Homey Cloud pretty useless to me and even my brother.
They donât want all those half working community apps on there. They just want bussiness to offer support om there.
The Community and community apps are a big advantage of Homey. Without them, there would only be the mainstream products compatible with homey. And even they are often only half working 
Why discredit alls the hobby developers who grant Homey such a big device support?
Bad if I need a âVerified developerâ subscription and a cloud subscription in addition to offer my apps for the cloudâŚmade in my free timeâŚ
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Iâve seen a lot more quality from community apps compared to the business apps. I still have Dyson restarting every night since it just stops working.
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Community apps are most of the time much better then the apps made by athom.
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Without some of the community apps I guess countdown, Mqtt etc the homey would be useless for me 
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The subsription fee is purely to get rid of community devs. This wonât cover any cost for Athom and I bet they know this. Also it wonât provide any review of the app or itâs code (this is also currently the case). Athom claims this will improve the app quality but I donât know how this should happen. I also donât know why manufacturers should pay for this and not the other way aroundđ¤Ł
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It wouldnât surprise me if Athom waived the fee for businesses that it really wants on-board if that was a deal breaker.
Also, the cloud apps are limited to cloud-to-cloud unless the bridge is used and I believe that doesnât allow local network access. So just ZigBee, Z-wave, BLE, etc via the bridge. Therefore the bridge is much more limited than a Homey Pro but will probably suit the needs of many users.
If you need more then the Homey Pro is the way to go and nothing changes as far as app support and developers go.
So donât think of the new bridge as a replacement for what you already have. It is a new product for new users that have simple needs and a limited budget.
I will keep developing my apps for Homey Pro, unless the manufactures want to take them over.
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Yes, the fee is basically to weed out those pesky community developers.
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Well to be honest. There has always be some tension between community (developers) and Athom.
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First there is very literally i build this nice app and all i got was a lousy t-shirt (or in this case hoodie).
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Secondly every SDK upgrade contained more restrains in terms of how they wish you to write the code. The way your app has to include / scan for devices and a increasing number of unrelated files you had to add (pictures in 3 resolutions, changelog contraints ect.).
In other words they want the community to build apps. But they want to offer there customers apps that confirm to the way athom thinks it has to work and those apps need to migrate with the vision of athom.
You simply canât demand that from a volunteer that writes a few lines of code now and then to add some device he bought on aliexpress to his homey.
Now they have cut the cord.
Homey classic and homey pro are from now on considered power user products. (donât know if all users agree with that but ok). They can lower the standard for apps running and are allowing community based apps on it. We will have to wait and see how much focus they will give this product and if this is a product line they will continue in the long run. In de FAQ Emile posted there are a lot of usually and shoulds as it comes to apps build for cloud working on Homey pro.
Homey bridge / cloud is there new main product. It is going tot generate continuous income. They will probably earn roughly the same amount of money on a bridge as on a homey pro per unit sold. And on homey cloud only athom made apps or athom approved apps will run. And by putting development on that platform in a subscription model they have more control over what apps to add, how they are written and how they present to the users.
Free homey is just a marketing gimmick.
From the moment they Athom made the choice to move stuff from homey to the cloud i was afraid this would be the logical next step. Cheap units with a scalable cloud backend has proven to be a moneymaker.
The keynote from yesterday i can only conclude was a party for investors and those within the company. The community developers and the current users did once again, same with there mobile only choice, same with the removal of the webinterface, dit get a clear message. Homey is for everyone but even more for Athom.
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Yes, they are not a filantropic institute, are you empty now? Did it releaf you, glad for you!
Well, quite some community apps are hard to understand, have a broken layout or you have complex configuration. If you want Homey to be for âeveryoneâ you canât have broken layout or complex config.
I think it is a logical step as they will have quite some expenses making sure the apps are good for âeveryoneâ
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I just checked and about 60% of the apps I use are made by community developers, including Ring, HomeWizard, Harmony Hub, Gledopto, Eufy Security, Aqara & Xiaomi ZigBee, SwitchBot, Xiaomi Mi Home and Yeelights LAN. All really good apps which are well laid out and are not complex to setup.
Without the support of those products, I wouldnât have gotten a Homey in the first place. A lot of work was done by those devs and work better than Athomâs stuff. I still have the Dyson and Yeelight (not Yeelights LAN) apps in a flow to reboot every night since they crash once in a while.
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You seem to be missing a point: even if quite some community apps are hard to understand, have a broken layout of have a complex configuration, they are made by people that want to provide all other Homey users access to certain devices, or to provide them with certain services that are missing from Homey. Not all Homey developers write code for a living, so not all apps will have a pristine code base.
Now, these developers will have to pay âŹ99 a year to gain the privilege of being able to publish apps for Homey Cloud, ĂĄnd they might get told that their apps will need major fixing if they want it to get published. How many developers do you think will offer up more of their own free time to do that?
Itâs strange to justify a subscription fee because of additional expenses for Athom, yet act as if community developersâ free time isnât worth anything.
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I do understand your point. But I understand Athom too.
At a certain moment I expect Athom to allow community apps too, but with a disclaimer.
Basically it are 2 different products for different audiences.
As they said, the fee isnât directed at community developers and I think that is because there was never any plans to inlude much if any of the apps written and maintained by hobbyists. Perhaps in some part becase of questionable code quality, but I doubt thatâs the main reason. More about the purpose of an app, if they use third party resources etc.
It looks to me that they rather envision companies to supply the apps, like Alterco (Shelly) does now, rather than the hobbyists. Basically secure a certain level of commitment from the owner of the app.
Makes sense to me but I wouldnât want to bet on it being viable, maybe few companies are interested in this model.
