I’ve found a few other alternatives to Homey Bridge:
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You can’t use those in Homey SHS, because the Homey SHS and Homey Bridge use a proprietary protocol that’s only supported by the Homey Bridge. The Homey Bridge is the only way to get native ZigBee/ZWave/IR/RF/BLE on Homey SHS
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Sorry, but in my opinion, what you’re saying isn’t correct. You can connect the SMHUB nano directly to the SHS via Zigbee2MQTT. In addition, you can integrate ZigBee devices directly into the Matter ecosystem.
In my opinion, the hub is the perfect solution if you don’t want to or can’t install a Homey Bridge.
BTW: I’ve attached another post (sorry, only in German) by simon24 that gives you a brief overview of the hub’s capabilities.
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But that means it’s not a Homey Bridge alternative. It needs a different system (Zigbee2MQTT) which is AFAIK completely independent of the Homey apps and only works with devices that are also supported by Zigbee2MQTT. If that would be a Homey Bridge alternative, then I would say that the Hue bridge, Tuya bridge, eWeLink bridge, IKEA DIRIGERA, etc. are also Homey Bridge alternatives.
There’s even a Homey app
Zigbee2MQTT currently 5219 devices are supported from 557 different vendors
That should be enough ..
..
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Yes, but Philips Hue also has a Homey app. It supports any device with basic on/off, dim or color control clusters.
Yes, but the Tuya bridge also supports thousands of devices. They also have an official Homey app
Still, all of these bridges only work with devices that their platform/ecosystem was designed for. In case of the Tuya bridge, that would be all Tuya devices. In case of Zigbee2MQTT, that would be any device that happens to be in their DB of supported devices. It does not natively integrate with Homey apps, so some devices might be missing in the bridge that are supported in Homey with a Homey Bridge. So it’s not a true alternative to the Homey Bridge in my opinion, since they work in a completely separate platform which you might need to install yourself or register with a service to use the device. That platform then works separately from Homey: you might be able to integrate its devices with Homey, but you can’t manage/add/change device settings in Homey, that still has to be done in the other platform’s app/website.
I’m just trying to say that there are no alternative bridges to the Homey Bridge, there might be alternative platforms like Philips Hue, Tuya, eWeLink or Zigbee2MQTT, but those need to be managed separately and are not compatible with Homey’s existing/built-in Zigbee functionalities/apps
I doubt you’ll find many (if any) devices that are supported by Homey but not by Z2M. Also, Z2M has pretty good generic device support, a device doesn’t have to be “in their DB” to be supported by it.
Which is probably why Athom chose to implement Matter support they way they did: built into the core, instead of requiring apps for anything but the most basic of devices, like with Zigbee.
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I’ve never seen any lights that work with Homey but not with the Hue bridge, but does that make the Hue Bridge an alternative to the Homey Bridge? No, because it doesn’t support every ZigBee device in that’s supported by the Homey Bridge, and it isn’t supported natively so you’ll have to manage it via a completely separate app/platform. You’re only integrating a platform into Homey, you’re not managing it from Homey.
That is a very narrow interpretation of alternative. By that definition, a car and public transportation would not be alternatives for one another as you need to drive the car yourself, but the bus is driven for you. So it might be true for someone without a drivers license, but not for someone with a drivers license.
While managing an additional service might not be suited for less technical users, and therefore not a viable alternative for them, it is an potential alternative for someone with ore technical skills, which is not unthinkable for those running Homey SHS. After all, this topic was started in the Homey SHS section.
For those looking at an alternative way of connecting zigbee devices to Homey SHS, a decent zigbee dongle combined with zigbee2mqtt can even offer advantages such as:
- Larger number of devices in your zigbee network
- Fewer apps running on Homey
- Simultaneous connectivity to different platforms (e.g. Homey and Home Assistant)
- OTA updates
It is true that you first need to add the device to zigbee2mqtt, but why would you not be able to manage or change device settings in Homey?
OP never said the Hue bridge was a viable alternative 
And yes, Z2M does not integrate with Homey’s SDK, but many people don’t care as long as they get a much better, more stable Zigbee platform in return. Adding and configuring a device is a one-time operation, after that is should Just Work (which is why many people are considering an alternative for Homey’s rather poor Zigbee implementation, not in the last place because the Zigbee hardware on the Bridge is woefully outdated).
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To be honest, I agree with @smarthomesven that no matter what bridges, USB sticks, etc., are used, they are not “true” alternatives to the Homey Bridge, because they require a second “system.” Sorry for the layman’s explanation.
And that has absolutely nothing to do with whether a third-party manufacturer’s Zigbee is better or worse—that’s not the point.
Besides, the Homey Z2M app doesn’t support by far all devices. I’m not just saying this because it’s actually stated in the description in the Homey App Store…
…but because I’m running Z2M myself. While I was able to “import” most Zigbee devices using the Homey Z2M app, I had to “import” some devices using the Homey HA Community app because those devices aren’t supported. I’ve even paired a handful of Zigbee devices directly with my HP, because I couldn’t get them to import with all their features, no matter if I used the Z2M or the HAC app.
Furthermore, it’s harder and more time-consuming (for non-techies) to write flows. You have to learn way more about Z2M than if these devices were integrated directly via the Homey Bridge and the corresponding app.
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