I want to add a Homey Bridge to my existing Homey Pro so I can expand to more than (20) Zigbee connections. (Homey Pro won’t let me add anymore). Otherwise, my Homey Pro runs great.
I plugged in the Homey Bridge and it gives me BLEmanager not started. My phones bluetooth is ON.
I researched other’s with same and even submitted a support ticket. I’ve tried blocking it from WIFI so the Bridge resets but same error keeps coming up. I’ve also unplugged my Homey Pro so only the bridge was powered on. Then I tried adding it to my Homey cloud account and that also failed with same error. What am I doing wrong?
Would also appreciate any thoughts on if this satellite bridge would give me more zigbee ports?
On a side note, someone suggested I try adding a Phillips Hue bridge for zigbee. I tried it but it fails because I use Third Reality bulbs and they don’t have serial numbers which is required. I could start over if you think Phillips is better than adding Homey Bridge.
You can’t use a bridge as satellite to increase the max number of zigbee devices; the limit is defined by the zigbee controller, Homey Pro.
The bridge only acts as zigbee router, like any €5 zigbee lamp does.
Let’s start with which Homey Pro model you’re using.
Is it a Pro or a Homey Cloud you’d like to configure? I’m confused.
The 2016-2019 models can’t connect a bridge as satellite at all
That’s not OK.
A (Pro) 2016-2019 can handle up to 15 direct zigbee devices, and you can then expand the mesh up to 35 - 40 devices. Some have even reported 70 zigbee devices with this model.
A Pro 2023 and newer should be capable to connect 100 or more zigbee devices.
To tune the 2.4GHz wifi and zigbee channels, and to solve common zigbee issues:
AFAIK this only allows selected zigbee devices. It’s not a generic zigbee controller like Homey tries to be.
My target box was a HomeyPro 2026. I opened a cloud account b/c that’s what support suggested. Now it doesn’t matter. I didn’t realize the bridge was just a zigbee router.
I’ll start looking at tuning my network. I’ve played with it before (Hotwire FIbre EERO 7) and they only show a few tuning options. Thanks for sharing.
They should be able to pair (the serial number doesn’t matter, those aren’t checked server side or anything). If it uses default ZigBee clusters (which AFAIK it does), it should be supported by the Hue bridge.
The only thing you will miss out on is software updates for the ThirdReality bulbs, since only the Third Reality hub can provide those.
I also have generic ZigBee devices linked to my Hue bridge, that works fine as well.
The 2016-2019 models can’t connect a bridge as satellite at all
