# Go back to Homey (pro) or stay at HA? **URL:** \ **Category:** Questions & Help\ **Created:** [September 9, 2021, 7:46am UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366 "2021-09-09T07:46:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pim\_Bliek](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/pim_bliek/32/707_2.png) [@Pim\_Bliek](https://community.homey.app/u/Pim_Bliek)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 7:46am UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/1 "2021-09-09T07:46:27Z")
Hi all, I’ve been a Homey kickstarter backer and loved the device, but sold it two years ago to a friend. I was fed up with the hassle involved to create flows and the limitations of flows. Also, I had issues with devices just disappearing if I remember correctly. Home Assistant has been very nice since then, but it is also quite some work to keep it running. Specially since it somehow is not able to detect all USB-devices, but that’s more of a Raspberry Pi problem I assume. So sometimes when it boots up, the Bluetooth dongle is not seen, or the Zigbee stick, etc. So now I’m kind of considering going back to Homey. Ok, it had it’s drawbacks but it did work quite stable. It is easy to use, the apps are great etc. And since you now seem to be able to create flows in a web interface again on a DESKTOP, that’s a great plus too. However, I was very much dissapointed with this “keynote”. I was hoping for a new version of the Homey (pro)… Also, it confused me. Does this mean all developers of apps now need to dig up $99 just to publish apps? Because this will for sure mean a lot of apps will no longer be maintained in the foreseeable future. A lot of the great apps are made by regular Joe’s in their spare time. Also, how is Z-Wave support at this moment? Is this stable? I don’t have a big house, and not many Z-Wave devices anymore. Most of them are battery-operated too, so good range is an issue. I do however have a range extender somewhere in the house. And how is Zigbee nowadays? Specially with battery operated devices? And how about Philips Hue? Should I connect those directly with Zigbee or via the Hue bridge? What is preferred nowadays? All in all I would like to know if it’s worth it to spend $400 on a new Homey Pro… And I understand everybody will have a different answer to it. I would however love to get some insight in my questions and the current state of affairs in Homey-land, since I’ve been away for two years :). Thanks in advance! ---
**Author:** ![Martijn\_C](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/martijn_c/32/39993_2.png) [@Martijn\_C](https://community.homey.app/u/Martijn_C)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 7:51am UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/2 "2021-09-09T07:51:42Z")
I can only comment on your Z-Wave question. I have about 100 Z-Wave devices in my house, 60 powered, 40 battery. Homey is still running smoothly. Stable and quick. The only thing is rebuilding the Z-Wave network, when Homey is restarted. This can take up to one hour. ---
**Author:** ![Osorkon](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/osorkon/32/43026_2.png) [@Osorkon](https://community.homey.app/u/Osorkon)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 8:09am UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/3 "2021-09-09T08:09:00Z")
I used Homey about 1,5 years. Since beginning of 2020 I switched to Home Assistant completely. I have about 95 Z-Wave devices, about 90 Zigbee and 10 EnOcean. Running on a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB with SSD. Everything runs smoothly since now over 1,5 years. I would never and never go back to Homey. Just my 2 cents. ---
**Author:** ![Pim\_Bliek](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/pim_bliek/32/707_2.png) [@Pim\_Bliek](https://community.homey.app/u/Pim_Bliek)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 8:17am UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/4 "2021-09-09T08:17:42Z")
@Osorkon You never have the problem of the Raspberry Pi losing USB-devices? Maybe I should get a better USB-hub… Currently I use a cheapo one from AliExpress :P. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Kawa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/peter_kawa/32/173848_2.png) [@Peter\_Kawa](https://community.homey.app/u/Peter_Kawa)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 9:57am UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/5 "2021-09-09T09:57:41Z")
Why would you restart your rpi? That said, I’m very happy with non-pro Homey. The flow thing you just have to catch, and there’s the h.o.o.p. app now. Flow as you’d like. I’m playing with HA for a while, set all up to let H and HA operate and read eachother. I did take a look to start with automations, but I do not get it yet. Incl. Node-red. So I have to dive into that. With Homey I made my flows rather easy. ---
**Author:** ![Osorkon](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/osorkon/32/43026_2.png) [@Osorkon](https://community.homey.app/u/Osorkon)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 10:42am UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/6 "2021-09-09T10:42:03Z")
> [@Pim\_Bliek](#): > > You never have the problem of the Raspberry Pi losing USB-devices? Never! 😀 I habe to say that I’m using from beginning 3 USB-Stick (Z-Wave, Zigbee an EnOcean) All three are connected to USB extension cable. I wanted to avoid that all Sticks are located closed to each other. One again, no issues at all! 😀 ---
**Author:** ![peltsi51](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/peltsi51/32/12564_2.png) [@peltsi51](https://community.homey.app/u/peltsi51)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 2:38pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/7 "2021-09-09T14:38:15Z")
The developers making apps for Homey Pro do not need to pay the 99e. For me Z-wave is very stable. Range is not good, but with extender(s) you get along great. Nowadays zigbee is working good. Same comments than for zwave. The problems in the past are fixed. I would recommend you to connect Hue devices straight to Homey Pro. That way you get large zigbee mesh. Never tried HA, but can recommend Homey Pro. ---
**Author:** ![Joost\_van\_Kempen](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/joost_van_kempen/32/10067_2.png) [@Joost\_van\_Kempen](https://community.homey.app/u/Joost_van_Kempen)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2021, 9:00pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/8 "2021-09-09T21:00:09Z")
I use Homey (early 2019) for connecting Z-Wave and Zigbee devices (25 powered, 20 battery) and some flows. With MQTT it connects to Home Assistant, running in Docker on a Synology NAS. HA is used for dashboarding and more complicated flows. So no hassle with a Pi’s failing USB-ports and crashing SD-cards. The NAS is very powerfull, so you can have cool realtime metrics, data collection etc. And using Docker means you can just make changes or update and reverse them with 2 mouse clicks. Or clone the complete environment for testing etc. When you don’t own a NAS already, this would be an expensive solution, however when you do it’s worth a try. I’m very satisfied with both Zigbee and Z-Wave range in my late 70’s 3-story prefab concrete house. There’s lots of reinforcement steel in these buildings, which could’ve been a problem, but it’s not. I did spend some time on creating the best network however, like positioning the Homey as central as possible in the house. So it is upstairs next to a stairway, not in my living room. And using extra zigbee power plugs as extenders. ---
**Author:** ![Pim\_Bliek](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/pim_bliek/32/707_2.png) [@Pim\_Bliek](https://community.homey.app/u/Pim_Bliek)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 5:33am UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/9 "2021-09-11T05:33:22Z")
Thanks guys for all the helpful comments and tips. I ordered the Homey Pro to give it another shot. The old Homey I had went to a friend. Also, it was a bit slow so I’m hoping the Pro will be better. I’ll report back on my experiences setting it up! PostNL f’ed up yesterday but I should be getting it today instead. ---
**Author:** ![Ray\_Godjord](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/ray_godjord/32/36636_2.png) [@Ray\_Godjord](https://community.homey.app/u/Ray_Godjord)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 6:06am UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/10 "2021-09-11T06:06:16Z")
> [@Peter\_Kawa](#): > > Why would you restart your rpi? > > That said, I’m very happy with non-pro Homey. > The flow thing you just have to catch, and there’s the h.o.o.p. app now. Flow as you’d like. > I’m playing with HA for a while, set all up to let H and HA operate and read eachother. > I did take a look to start with automations, but I do not get it yet. Incl. Node-red. > So I have to dive into that. With Homey I made my flows rather easy. @Peter_Kawa Could you elaborate about the h.o.o.p app? I find the flows limited, I’ve tried to search the App Store for h.o.o.p, but gets no real hits… ---
**Author:** ![Undertaker](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/undertaker/32/53278_2.png) [@Undertaker](https://community.homey.app/u/Undertaker)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 6:46am UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/11 "2021-09-11T06:46:20Z")
[https://store.homey.community/app/nl.qluster-it.HOOP](https://store.homey.community/app/nl.qluster-it.HOOP) ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Kawa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/peter_kawa/32/173848_2.png) [@Peter\_Kawa](https://community.homey.app/u/Peter_Kawa)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2021, 1:11pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/12 "2021-09-11T13:11:30Z")
Thanks, Uwe. It’s in the community store indeed. And [here’s the h.o.o.p. forum topic](https://community.homey.app/t/h-o-o-p-hope-homey-object-oriented-programming/43709) for all info and examples. Advanced Scheduler might be interesting too. It’s about creating flow triggers of f.i. type “which comes first” (Sun rise or 8AM, sunset or 7PM) and more > [@\[App\]\[Pro\] Advanced Scheduler](https://community.homey.app/t/app-advanced-scheduler/43767): > > An advanced scheduler for weekly and monthly (comming) schedules with fixed time or solar events (sunset, sunrise, dusk, dawn, midday and so on). Advanced features include: Random schedule event times. Example: trigger at random time between 21:00 and 22:30. Conditional triggering (only trigger schedule event if before or after certain time). Example: trigger at sunrise but only if before 06:00. First of/last of triggering (trigger the first or last of two trigger times). Example: Trigger fir… ---
**Author:** ![Meneer\_Lau](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/meneer_lau/32/86532_2.png) [@Meneer\_Lau](https://community.homey.app/u/Meneer_Lau)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2024, 7:21pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/13 "2024-04-27T19:21:37Z")
I know it’s been 2.5 years, but I’m considering the same decision you made. Do you still use Homey? Is it worth switching from Home Assistant? I’m contemplating using both Homey and Home Assistant simultaneously: Homey for its sleek flow builder, stability, and beautiful UI, and Home Assistant for devices not yet supported by Homey, like my Eve Thermo. ---
**Author:** ![Vnet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@Vnet](https://community.homey.app/u/Vnet)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 9:14am UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/go-back-to-homey-pro-or-stay-at-ha/51366/14 "2024-12-22T09:14:08Z")
Inhave both, homey and ha, linked with mqtt I use ha mainly as a smart sensor for homey, for ble sensors and devices not supported in homey. Also 1 dashboard is hosted on ha. But homey is ‘in charge’