Thanks guy’s for all the info, I just did the mod within 5 minutes.
Easy job if you go for the upper half of the dome.
Now waiting if the result is what I hope.
3 Likes
I’m curious.
Oke I have the mod running for a few day’s and what I see that the lamps on 5+ meters are working fast and good. But the lamps close to Homey can have a lag of sometimes 1 minute.
Outcome is still not what I wantend to be so still waiting on the Zigbee rewrite… 
Modifying the antenna won’t solve any problems related with zigbee and/or z-wave which are software related.
It just increases the range of the above protocols.
Thought I would give an update here for those interested.
After almost four weeks since I’ve done the z-wave antenna mod, I can say that never been so pleased with Homey’s z-wave response like I am now. Touch wood!
Whereas before the antenna modification most of my devices used to be reached via two, three of four hops, now most of them have a direct connection with Homey, some via one hop and only one via two hops, this particular Fibaro Dual relay is farthest located from Homey and before the mod barely could work via 4 hops, it was a hit and miss.
Currently in total I have 60 z-wave devices.
I’ve made some screenshots from the dev tools, I won’t post them here as this tread is already full with photos. For those interested, let me know and I shall PM them.
The best part, all my Fibaro Multisensors work without missing one beat since all have a direct connection with Homey. Four weeks ago, those sensors except one close by Homey, were more or less useless.
Not to mention that when including/excluding a device, neither I have to bring Homey close by the device nor I have to bring the device to Homey. How good is that?
In regards with the zigbee, I only have 6 devices, all battery powered, all reached with no problems.
5 Likes
I would really love to Homey but the shortcomings of the RF antennas range and enclosure design are doing my head in. So I had a quick play with Sketchup to think how a new enclosure for integrators should look. Also added ports for such things as External IR emitters and RJ45 connection (would like this to be POE too). Plus the NFC connector (this really should be able to be run to a external NFC reader at a front door), the usb should be easily upgrade-able to USB C for future proofing too.
Looking at just redesigning an enclosure for the moment that will house the existing components with optional outputs for external connectors. What do you think? Am I wasting my time and money on this or do you think the Hub needs a Pro solution?
4 Likes
This is how a Homey-Pro could look like but because Athom is aiming at the consumer market and is more concerned about the looks of their app I don’t think it will ever be developed. Maybe the community could develop a pro domotica system without the limits of Homey. I would be very interested to participate.
Very nice indeed and perhaps practical to some point.
But it looks more like a Fibaro HC2 now so I would never entertain such box.
I love the look of Homey simple white sphere and actually quite upset that I spoiled it with two ugly antennas. When I will have a moment, I will get a cable extender and have the antennas far away of sight.
I did the mod today for zigbee and wifi and they seam to work very good. I have a antenna for z-wave that im going to put in probably tomorrow. I used @danone method of opening the homey. Worked fairly well 
I noticed something when i took the unit apart and that is that my curcuit board is a newer version then you guys but mine i gues is somewhat newer on the flipside of the board it said it have version 1.6. Not shure exactly what the difference is between the board versions. Would have been nice to know. But i have noticed a couple of things right away one of them is that on my board there is no 4gb eMMC curcuit attached to the board but seam to exist on the pictures above. I took a whole bunch of pictures for future ref.
1 Like
Although I can really appreciate these kind of ‘tweaks’, it does show that Homey’s design is not ‘too good’. It worries me since it seems that it really is a hardware issue and is not expected to be solved by a firmware update. I do not want to change a €300 device: it should work as it was intended.
I looked over the components on the photos i took to see what they put in there. Well it is a 1 core arm cortex A9 cpu on it it have only blutooth 4.0 support there is a UFS on the cpu board wish is a Solidrun board. It only support 2,4ghz wifi 2x2 MiMo. There is lan support but sins connector aint on there well could be retrofitted i guess. It should support 1Gb but you will only get 470 due to the lane limitation. On my unit they have switched one of the internal antennas to the same as the other one. There is a microsd card slot location on the flipside that i gues could be used for something fun maybe 
additional storage maybe?
What could have been done is to put the next gen board in the next version maybe that could get BT 5.0 and 5ghz/AC support on wifi and a dual core cortex m6 if they wanted to keep cost down.
I agree the current design is cute and more astheticaly pleasing, but I look at things from an installers/integrators perspective. And this what Athom need to be pushing now to get worldwide acceptance, otherwise they become another hub with a small and non profitable community that eventually wastes away. Other players are starting to catch up and will soon over take (I know, I come from Zipato controller who are experiencing the same issue now)
HC2 look alike, that’s not entirely bad, that are know for designing high end looking products. I just think the Homey could do more, and should be a cross between a RTI or Control4 hub and the current Hub it is, but it needs better hardware and that requires a more conventional enclosure.
And this design is not designed to be seen, but rather hidden in cabinetry or comms racks. A real Pro series. To give you an example, I really want to use this on a project next year on a very large house, but can’t because i can’t use multiple Homeys in one installation to cover the home. It would be a big project and great media for Homey, but 1 Homey just won’t cope with the number of devices and load of programming. (Unless somebody can design an app to bring all devices from 1 hub into another so they can communicate over IP, before mid January)
Sorry I just see gaps that need to be filled or opportunities and won’t this product to succeed. It has a great community and support and Athom are great, but to succeed you need to improve and target the more profitable commercial industry.
Where can I find the method? (can’t find it 
)
It’s a bit back in this topic…
1 Like
As Peter wrote regarding where to find the info and Sjalabert wondering. My experience on opening the Homey. Well how they put it together is by glueing the top on last. So how do it look well the top is glued to a plastic ring that you see from the outside it is the ring that the lights in the homey floress thru. The plastic ring is screwed with plastic screws along with the curcuit board to the bottom half. I would not recomend trying to take the unit apart any other way then the way we did.
The top dome have a jagged edge that is glued to the plastic ring. when you use a very flat Sharp knife from the side of the Power and audio jack end you will notice it is some what simpler to get in there. And getting around the entire dome what happens is the plastic ring moves a litle that way you know your in there. Do not jiggle to much when your in there because it is better damaging the plastic inward then the dome outside upward "you want it to look nice when you put it together again
A good sugestion that i realised after was that i should have marked the top dome and bottom dome so i know what orientation the top and bottom half was going together again would save a minute or 2 instead of sitting there and turn the dome around finding the right snug fit.
4 Likes
I like your design! Maybe time to make some CAD files and have it 3D printed
Ohh god another project of mine… getting my broken 3D printer back to work
2 Likes
I would love to try and print it on my 3D printer. something very different for homey can be found on thingiverse. In my opinion we could drop the LED ring, but some basic statistics would be missing (ring of death etc.)
1 Like
There is a possibility to further increase the performance of Homey:
Zwave:
Zigbee:
Please observe the legal regulations in your country.
Cool. Heeft wel voeding nodig, dus moet je ergens vandaan trekken. Vraag me wel af of dit dan weer niet een negatief effect heeft op de andere frequenties.
OOOPS, sorry:
Cool. But it needs power, so you have to retrieve that from somewhere. I am wondering if this has a negative effect on the other frequencies.
#petervdk
Please write in english or use dutch sub forum
1 Like
