Hello everyone,
I’m using Homey for about 2 years.
I was looking for a home automation system for my house that can control several types of devices.
So I started with Homey, then Hue, Xiaomi, Aqara, Shelly, IKEA and other devices, mostly on Zigbee.
Firstly I saw Homey’s Zigbee limitations with the number of devices that can be added, I think something around 20.
I know that using routers can extend the network, but I am currently having around 22 devices from which only 12 are directly connected to Homey and I don’t seem to be able to add more.
Then everyone was waiting for the Zigbee rewrite like a holy grail, even if some of you were saying that this can’t solve the hardware limitations . Unfortunately the Zigbee rewrite only allowed more devices to be supported by Homey but the hardware limitation remained the same.
Second limitation was with Hue, the distance between the bridge and the bulbs ended with me being obliged to buy more hue devices to close the gap and have a functional mesh.
You add lights then you add switches, then the great “Friends of Hue” Feller switches, then the in-walls hue switches which transforms your dumb switches into smart ones. Until you realize that you can’t assign more controls to the switches because you run out of memory on your hue bridge which is the 3rd limitation.
So now with both Hue and Homey maxed out I’m a bit lost. I was hoping that Hue will release a new more powerful bridge or at least find a solution to extend the hardware capabilities by adding a second one without having to remove from the first one the devices and without creating a separate mesh network.
Same expectations I was having from Athom and then the bridge was released, apparently with the same hardware limitations. I even don’t understand if you can use it in parallel with Homey Pro but probably if you can you won’t be able to control a device from Homey with a device from the bridge.
I am thinking of all solutions as it’s quite frustrating to have dozens of devices I can’t use. I think some of them are forgotten in a drawer.
I was thinking that maybe adding a Xiaomi bridge or Aqara bridge might help but apparently that has some limitations and apparently the developer of the app is busy with something else.
I also checked for alternatives but as always changing doesn’t seem easy and I must say I love Homey’s interface and the easiness of using it. And nothing seems to be as good.
I am not even sure if Matter will solve all these issues. But probably with that I have to replace most of my devices.
At this moment a have door sensors, several type of buttons, hue in-wall switches, Opple Switches that I can’t use, can’t add.
I even accidentally removed one of my existing Opple switches and now I can’t add it back.
I couldn’t even add a Hue 4 buttons remote using the “hue without gateway” app. Devices are not detected near Homey or near router.
My question is what do I do now. Should I give up and leave my unused devices in the drawer or is there a solution to my frustrating problem?Did I missed something while I was doing my search?
Thanks,
Dan
