Yes, you’re right, the Homey Pro will remain “limitless” (at least until the next keynote… 
)
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Not a monthly fee possibly not, although again if the price is right perhaps, if I say had 10 apps and they all worked perfectly and were all around £5 a year, I’d happily pay the £50 a year to keep things ticking over nicely with support and upgrades for new devices etc. Depends whether a dev would prefer a £10 cost upfront or a recurring. But with the Homey subscription only at £3 and the device now reduced from £399 to £79 it’s a good option for me.
I think perhaps it’s meant to be for verification. You pay to be a developer like IKEA, but anyone can still develop without having a subscription. You will just not show as a verified dev.
If you’re fine with running your entire home automation on a server somewhere, and sit in the dark when your internet connection is out, a Homey Bridge would work for you, yes.
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You need to be verified to be able to write cloud apps, though.
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Phew… 
Nope, for your app to be available on Homey Cloud, you will need to be verified.
The 99 EUR per/year is probably to off-set their costs as they need to check your code more in-depth, as it is running on their servers instead of a local Homey-instance.
To be honest the devices I currently use the most don’t work when the internet is down anyways on my homey pro, so it wouldn’t be too much of an issue for me. I have pretty good uptime on my connection. I use a lot through Siri/Homekit via Homey so as soon as the internet connection is down I loose a lot anyway.
Just to be clear… When you own a Homey Pro device… Will services be moved to the cloud, og will it remain local?
Homey Cloud is a separate product from Athom vs your Homey pro.
Your Homey pro will stay local (not looking at backups) for the foreseeable future.
Be sure to verify that the Bridge actually supports Homekit. Its hardware is severely limited.
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There was actually not much clarity around this topic.
It was left kind of ambiguous, we might have to pay the subscription as well since is tied to the software, not to the device.
One of the Athom founders states on Tweakers:
“Homey Pro will remain available from shops, and there’s not subscription required for it. You either buy a Homey Pro for a one-time price, or you purchase Homey as a cloud service, optionally combined with Homey Bridge” (translation mine)
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Well, Athom Bridge are obviously not aimed for existing users. I would not trade my white glowing ball for a a flat device.
I hope this community gan continue to grow despite this new hockey puck that needs internet connection, and apps that require a feisty monetary contribution from the hardworking developers…
What is a bit concerning is, if you go for the Bridge, and pay for the subscription, you will most likely get less apps to choose from since many developers will not pay to get their apps to the online version of Homey. For me it is a no-brainer.
I totally get that Athom needs the subscription based price model in order to survive, but to let developers, private developers that don’t work for a commercial company pay in order to get their apps published? This is rubbish, a bad call by Athom.
I have just one very simple question for @Emile or @Stefan;
For what problem is Homey Bridge a/the solution?
We all have problems with;
- speed
- support
- decreasing functionality
- app support due to missing commercial option
So instead of making the product better eacht iteration they are reinventing the same product (like web, app, web) over and over. €400 for a product that “makes your life easier everyday” is not expensive. €400 for a product that reduces your energy consumption in a smart way is not expensive.
So they have dedicated resources to make an online version of the product they are selling for years. So in the most ideal situation Homey Bridge customers will have the same capabilities to their disposal that current customers have had since 2019-ish albeit with a dependency on a working internet connection - Not a great trade off if you ask me.
So back to the original question: For what problem is Homey Bridge a/the solution?
Hence it makes sense they will either use subscription money to fund development of apps or monetise the App Store.
Why does a new device (that doesn’t meet your needs, but probably does for lots of other people) need a problem to exist, they just want to offer another option for (new) users to be able to use.
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Athom’s cashflow.
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400 bucks is a lot of money for a lot of people that are taking their first steps in home automation. With Homey cloud you can start really easy with some bulbs and switches.
I think that they want to reach a bigger audience and with a bigger audience, some manufacturers will want to develop and support their own plugins.
As an existing Homey user you are not the target audience for cloud. Because you want more than that.
I won’t use it, but I still think it’s a smart concept.
