Homey – After a Few Months, I Think It’s a Scam

Off-Topic
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After a few months of using Homey, I honestly regret the purchase. I had the chance to borrow Home Assistant (HA) from a friend, and the performance difference between the two is massive. Homey markets itself as a pro solution, but in reality, it struggles with even the most basic tasks.

For example, it’s unable to efficiently manage something as simple as turning devices on/off in groups — which is both disappointing and unacceptable for a product in this category. The time counter in Advanced Flow doesn’t work reliably either. Just try this experiment yourself: set up a simple instruction to perform an action after 1 second and repeat it 2–3 times. With Homey, the results are always non-deterministic. Strangely enough, it performs slightly better through the web UI, but even then it’s inconsistent. Meanwhile, HA executes these tasks flawlessly every single time.

If I had the choice again, I would never pick Homey. Coming from an IT background myself, it’s baffling that such a product has shipped with these fundamental flaws and still advertises itself as a professional-grade solution. In my opinion, that’s misleading at best.

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I don’t think Homey is sold as a professional solution, the “Pro” in “Homey Pro” is just a meaningless marketing term (just like “local first” and “using the cloud only when necessary”).

Athom’s focus for Homey seemed to never be on performance, or determinism/stability, or fixing long-standing issues (like being able to control more than 2 devices at the same time reliably), but on good looks.

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You make it sound like everything on HA works perfectly and deterministically, but honestly, that’s far from what I’ve seen. I’ve been in the HA Facebook group for years, and it’s a constant stream of complaints about bugs, compatibility issues, things breaking, and the general fear of updating whenever a new release comes out.

In my opinion, the reality is quite different: the smart home landscape is just too fragmented. Every brand tends to focus on locking people into its own ecosystem rather than making sure devices integrate smoothly with different hubs whether hardware or software.

Take Homey Pro, for example. It’s marketed as a plug-and-play home hub (I’m not sure where you got the “professional hub” idea from). HA, on the other hand, is positioned as a free software hub. But the reality is: to run it properly nowadays you need a fairly decent mini PC (around €250), then a monitor for easier management (add another €150), plus the required antennas (let’s say another €100 depending on quality). That’s about €500 spent before you even get started and then you still need to install and configure everything, which comes with a pretty steep learning curve.

On top of that, if you want reliable remote access you’ll need a paid DDNS service (recurring, not one-time), and for stable operation of certain services, you’ll likely need the NABU Casa subscription too. So where exactly is the big economic advantage? And definitely not in terms of a user-friendly interface. Unless you enjoy spending your days troubleshooting issues as they pop up, HA isn’t exactly a smooth experience.

Sure, if your goal is to make your 1980s toaster “smart” by hacking it with an ESP32 microcontroller and integrating it into Home Assistant, then HA will give you that flexibility. But for most people who just want a functional and stable system, I don’t really see the appeal.

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If we’re following that road, you need to buy a full PC or laptop with Homey for “easier management” :man_shrugging:t3:

And HA runs just fine on a €120 Mini/refurb PC, or an HA Green (€130), or on your NAS if you happen to have one. Plus if you don’t use Z-Wave/Zigbee/Thread/IR/RF, you can skip that antenna.

You’ll find the exact same constant stream of complaints about Homey on this forum.

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Yes, that’s true….. but I’ve never seen anyone on any forum claim that HA is a “scam.” That’s just ridiculous. Words matter, and they should be used carefully. If the original poster genuinely believes they’ve been scammed by Athom, then they should take legal action. Otherwise, they’re simply defaming a company.
Let’s drop the antenna discussion… otherwise we could just as well say: why not save the €120 for the mini PC too (probably picked up from a scrapyard :slightly_smiling_face:). As for the NAS, I honestly don’t see why a “normal” user should even bother with that. At this point, we might as well save our mental health too and just use smart devices with their proprietary apps problem solved, zero headaches.

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Homey Pro is being sold with promises that it cannot uphold and that has bitten many users in the past, and still does.

It was only after having been on sale for more than a year that the product page was fixed because Homey Pro didn’t actually have an 1.8Ghz CPU, as advertised, but a 1.5Ghz one, for instance.

If “local first” were really true, why do people keep having issues with being unable to control their Homey locally?

Homey Pro backups: “Homey Pro Backups keeps all your Homey Pro’s data safe”. Not true, it doesn’t keep all data safe. Ask anyone trying to revert to a previous firmware or app version.

And I can probably go on and on.

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I respect your opinion, and I’m sure that as a veteran of this forum you know far more than I do. I’m simply saying that I don’t believe calling the Athom team “scammers” is fair or accurate.

Companies make mistakes, how many times has the company with the bitten apple made them? A**** Intelligence ring a bell? And yet, it’s the biggest company in the world with virtually unlimited resources, but it has still made plenty of serious errors.

Perfection doesn’t exist. No matter what product you buy, even the “best” one on the market, you’ll always find a flaw, an inaccuracy, or something that doesn’t work the way you expect.

At the end of the day, consumers are protected: we have plenty of options to assert our rights, whether through standard return policies within the legal time frame or even through legal action if needed. But that doesn’t give anyone not you, not me, and certainly not the OP the right to label others as scammers.

That’s just my perspective, and of course you’re absolutely free to feel miles away from my point of view.

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Moved to Offtopic, the OP doesn’t contain Ideas and Sugestions nor does the lable/Tag Advances Flow apply to the content.
Pls continue a good discussion but if bashing Homey and or HA is the only thing I guess we are going to close.

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Take Homey Pro, for example. It’s marketed as a plug-and-play home hub (I’m not sure where you got the “professional hub” idea from)

If you had made even the minimum effort, @luca_reina, you would see “The all-new Homey Pro is the world’s most advanced smart home hub.” right on Homey’s landing page. Or “Stunning performance upgrades highly increase the performance of Homey Pro.”

Your arguments are ridiculous. Good luck taking legal actions over a customer’s disappointment.

And the truth is — yes, I am disappointed. By buying Homey, I expected it to work more reliably and stably than other HA solutions, just as it’s being advertised. But it doesn’t.

I’ve been in the HA Facebook group for years, and it’s a constant stream of complaints about bugs, compatibility issues, things breaking, and the general fear of updating whenever a new release comes out.

Power users rarely have those problems.

Perfection doesn’t exist. No matter what product you buy, even the “best” one on the market, you’ll always find a flaw, an inaccuracy, or something that doesn’t work the way you expect.

This is not true. I used to work in the airline industry, where perfection was the standard and issues were simply unacceptable. It was a highly demanding environment, but with proper quality controls and genuine customer obsession, you could consistently meet a high bar of excellence.

I’ve seen posts about Homey’s performance and lag issues dating back years - and yet, there’s been no meaningful progress. How would you explain that?

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Hello Karol_HA :slightly_smiling_face:

I appreciate your thoroughness and the time you’ve taken to state your viewpoint, although I still dont share the accusation of “scam” against Athom. Let’s keep a clear head and analyze the points you’ve raised.
On marketing and expectation

You cited the phrases “the world’s most advanced smart home hub” and “stunning performance upgrades highly increase the performance of homey pro” as evidence that homey pro is more than just a plug-and-play hub. Indeed, a company that self-identifies as the most advanced in the world implicitly creates a high expectation that goes beyond basic operation. We can agree on this: the expectations created by the marketing were, in part, the catalyst for your disappointment.

On legal action and customer disappointment

Regarding your comment that “taking legal actions over a customer’s disappointment” is ridiculous, I must reiterate that my argument was not about compensation for disappointment, but about consumer protection in the case of false or incomplete statements about product specifications. You cited the example of the incorrect CPU clock rate as a concrete error that, depending on the jurisdiction, can grant the right to an extended return or compensation if the error is considered a material misrepresentation. Disappointment is subjective; objective non-compliance is legally relevant. The consumer is protected from untrue specifications, and that’s the core point.

The paradigm of the airline industry vs the reality of iot

You brought up the example of the airline industry, where “perfection was the standard and issues were simply unacceptable.” This is a logical, yet impractical, comparison in the context of smart homes. Aviation operates in a closed, strictly regulated ecosystem, with specified and certified (and extremely expensive) hardware, and a margin of error close to zero is the minimum required for physical safety (and yet, air disasters have still occurred, even recently). I stated it in my previous posts and I reiterate it now: “Perfection doesn’t exist.”

As for the IoT, it is an open, fragmented ecosystem that must interface with thousands of third-party devices, often with standards that are sub-optimally implemented.

  • It is unrealistic to expect the “airline perfection” standard from a consumer hub that must integrate products from dozens of different companies (IKEA, Philips, Aqara, Xiaomi, etc.), each with its own firmware bugs and protocol implementations.

  • Compatibility and update issues (the “fear of updating” that I mentioned) are a structural consequence of the iot ecosystem, not a unique or deliberate flaw of Homey or HA

On persistent performance issues

Regarding the persistence of lag and performance problems: if the issues stem from software architecture or hardware bottlenecks, it is the company’s responsibility to resolve them. However, the presence of threads where constructive discussion is possible is, in itself, evidence of the attempt to resolve complex engineering challenges and a possible misprioritization of development.

From my perspective, this is a positive indicator. I’d like to point out that it is precisely due to Athom ‘s will that this community exists, and exists in the best way possible with an open forum allowing for criticism and suggestions for new implementations. If what you assert in the thread’s title “that the product is a scam” were even remotely true, rest assured that this forum would not exist.

In summary, I understand and respect your disappointment with a product that didnt meet the expectations fueled by marketing. This isnt the first, nor will it be the last time it happens; I brought up the example of the “bitten apple” company, which in my view is the emblem of this paradigm. In any case, the “oversights” on the CPU clock and the difficulties in developing stable software in a complex IOT environment fall under the category of marketing and/or engineering errors, not that of a fraud (‘scam’). I hope the discussion can continue to focus on constructive criticism of the product, rather than on attributing such heavy and objectively difficult to prove labels.
I wish you a wonderful sunday! :sun:
Luca.

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I wonder, is Chad G. Peterson eating popcorn now…

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As someone who has used HA for many moons I find Homey alot easier to use. Yes, it doesn’t have all the features/apps like HA however its an easier to use system compared to HA, perfect for those who only have a few systems like Philips Hue, Efuy doorbells etc and want access via 1 single app where HA is for those who want to add full systems, customise everything too.

Even though HA is more detailed you can like it to homey to pull all the missing features Homey still needs to add so for me its the best of both worlds.

Yes Homey has some drawbacks, its biggest is not been able to create a dashboard via cloud (big mistake on Homeys side as most will want the bigger screens/mouse/keyboard) and I personaly think its what is holding people back from Homey but unlike HA, Homey works right out of the box, no building a Pi, flashing the OS etc etc.

Just my personal thoughts tho…..

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You can buy official, working-out-of-the-box HA devices.

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yes you can, HA Green is $129 and HA Yellow is about the same cost. Homey Bridge is 69 euros but still I think HA will appeal to most due to its intergrations but Homey is more user friendly for non-tech poeple.

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I don’t see how that is relevant, Homey Bridge is just a bunch of antennas, it can’t do anything by itself.

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@luca_reina
Thank you for your response. I see your point and appreciate that.

As for the IoT, it is an open, fragmented ecosystem that must interface with thousands of third-party devices, often with standards that are sub-optimally implemented.

  • It is unrealistic to expect the “airline perfection” standard from a consumer hub that must integrate products from dozens of different companies (IKEA, Philips, Aqara, Xiaomi, etc.), each with its own firmware bugs and protocol implementations.

  • Compatibility and update issues (the “fear of updating” that I mentioned) are a structural consequence of the iot ecosystem, not a unique or deliberate flaw of Homey or HA

On persistent performance issues

Regarding the persistence of lag and performance problems: if the issues stem from software architecture or hardware bottlenecks, it is the company’s responsibility to resolve them. However, the presence of threads where constructive discussion is possible is, in itself, evidence of the attempt to resolve complex engineering challenges and a possible misprioritization of development.

I fully recognize that IoT differs significantly from traditional software engineering domains. However, many fundamental principles still apply. The fact that the system behaves differently when actions are executed via a web browser versus a mobile device indicates an underlying performance issue. The workaround of introducing a one-second delay between actions is widely discussed in this forum - but in the IT world, a single second is an eternity.

From my perspective, this is a positive indicator. I’d like to point out that it is precisely due to Athom ‘s will that this community exists, and exists in the best way possible with an open forum allowing for criticism and suggestions for new implementations. If what you assert in the thread’s title “that the product is a scam” were even remotely true, rest assured that this forum would not exist.

That’s a valid point. However, I still find it misleading to promote the product in this manner while it suffers from significant performance and reliability issues. If this doesn’t qualify as fraudulent, I’m not sure how else to characterise it.

Thank you Luca and have a good day.

As someone who has used HA for many moons I find Homey alot easier to use. Yes, it doesn’t have all the features/apps like HA however its an easier to use system compared to HA, perfect for those who only have a few systems like Philips Hue, Efuy doorbells etc and want access via 1 single app where HA is for those who want to add full systems, customise everything too.

I believe Homey is more user-friendly for basic use cases, whereas Home Assistant excels when it comes to more complex and sophisticated configurations.

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I think it’s a strong statement to call it a scam, but I share your sentiment. I also agree with your determination of the ‘Pro’ moniker. The Homey just doesn’t deliver on expectations or promises.

I bought Homey as an out of the box fully featured solution that takes away many of the vagaries of HA, but the reality is very far from that.

my understanding was that Homey would take away the need to have multiple other hubs for various eco systems and bring them all in to one, hence the very high price. It’s not the case at all.

My homey is currently just a paperweight, it’s doing nothing for me because either I have had to get, or already got, the relevant eco system hub or Homey doesn’t support the devices I have.

I thought the integration would be ground up, but the reality is many of the integrations rely on the development of a third party. One that specifically bugs me is Aqara, doesn’t receive hardly any updates, and when they did they still didn’t add in the current range of devices.

There’s no way I would recommend anyone to buy Homey.

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I agree with a lot of the sentiments expressed here.

When I bought Homey Pro I was drawn in by the “Pro” moniker and that it allegedly supported practically everything right out of the box. However the reality is somewhat different. Prior to purchase I was using Apple Home and a basic Home Assistant setup through a Raspberry Pi to integrate stuff to AH that wasn’t natively supported. Everything native in Apple worked, the HA integration was always the stuff that caused an issue.

Partly my own fault, I should have done more research, but I was attracted to Homey Pro as I watched a few YouTube reviews and also the marketing that implied it worked with everything and it all worked locally if the internet went off.

So I spent £399 on the Homey Pro and set it up. Immediately I ran into issues.

In my eco system I have Philips Hue, Meross, Sonoff, Tapo, Reolink, Frient, Nuki, Sonos & Tado°

Philips Hue - All lights went in no problem. However can’t seem to find an option in Homey Pro to use the adaptive lighting (that changes the colour temp throughout the day) that was available in Apple Home. I also can’t group lights together without using a 3rd party app :thinking:

Meross - Allegedly supported, which it is to some extent, just not the plugs I had. So had to use an old Alexa to add the Meross plugs into that to then import into Homey Pro

Sonoff - As with Meross. Some support just not the devices I had. So back to setting it up through Alexa

Tapo - Same as Meross & Sonoff

Nuki - Went in and works.

Frient - Went in and works

Tado° - Went in, but don’t really see the point of it as I use the Tado° Assist feature which works flawlessly and now has offline scheduling that will keep the schedule working in the event of a loss of internet. Never really explored if it would work in Homey.

Reolink - Pointless integration. You can’t live stream a camera, just see a snapshot using ONVIF. So removed from Homey Pro.

Sonos - My speakers are in but it’s pointless as I can’t start anything on it as I can’t see my Apple Music library to do so. So all I can see is if any of the speakers are in use or not.

Then we come to flows. Basic flows are limited, Advance flows are quite difficult for a new user to get to grips with. I’ve watched plenty of tutorials on it and it still takes me a while to sort out a flow to do what I want.

I am persevering with it because I have invested £399. However the thing that irritates me the most at the moment is the stability. Sometimes my flows will work instantly when using Hue Switches and Motion Sensors. Other times there will be a lag with some lights turning on/off straight away and others taking 3-5 secs to switch on/off.

I often find I have to reboot apps like the Alexa App or Groups app when things stop working.

Overall I am very disappointed with it. I would most certainly not recommend it to anyone and have even told people not to buy it when they have asked as it is not an easy system to use for the less technical.

I guess if you only had Philips Hue then it would be great, but then it would be pointless as you could just use the Hue app.

Athom need to concentrate on sorting out the bugs, stability and responsiveness.

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@Carl thanks for taking the time to share your experiences - I fully agree with everything you said.

Surprisingly, with the current Homeys performance and the ongoing issues, using either motion or presence sensors makes no sense at all if the lag varies anywhere from 1 to 5 seconds. I’ve had exactly the same experience - it’s disappointing, and the whole marketing around this product feels shocking considering the actual results.

Because of that, I’m not changing my opinion. I just hope that one day Homey will finally fix the performance and stability problems. I want to be very direct here: in the IT world, such a lack of stability is simply unacceptable, and most professional companies would take serious action to resolve it.

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I’ve used Homey for 6-8 years. I control all lights, doors, door bell, heaters, AC, heat pump, Sigenergy battery-pack, solar panels, storage for filament air%. I have survailance screens via MQTT. I have six cameras connected. I read the weather from two sources. I even have my Apple Watch connected. My two Alexa looses contact with Amazon, that is the only problem I have plus, of course, my own shortages in some flows sometimes.

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