# Homey vs. Home Assistant – What Does Each System Do Better? **URL:** \ **Category:** Off-Topic\ **Created:** [September 9, 2026, 3:51pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392 "2026-09-09T15:51:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Doekse](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/doekse/32/109415_2.png) [@Doekse](https://community.homey.app/u/Doekse)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 1:39pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/163 "2026-10-12T13:39:11Z")
If you are going to do it, do it right. _Always_ link to the comic when you share it; [xkcd: Standards](https://xkcd.com/927/) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![smarthomesven](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/smarthomesven/32/79712_2.png) [@smarthomesven](https://community.homey.app/u/smarthomesven)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 2:09pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/164 "2026-10-12T14:09:34Z")
> [@deejayreissue](#): > > How hard can it be to create a smart home ecosystem guys In my opinion, there can’t and also shouldn’t be 1 standard to rule them all. All smart home devices are unique, and have their own specialized features. If it was required for manufacturers to adhere to the same standard, then the only thing manufacturers could compete for is the price since there wouldn’t be any unique features for any device, which is bad for technical innovation. And there also wouldn’t be much choice if you wanted a different standard, or something that “the” standard doesn’t follow. So IMO it’s a good thing that there are multiple standards for smart home devices. ---
**Author:** ![Pascal\_Nohl](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/pascal_nohl/32/164446_2.png) [@Pascal\_Nohl](https://community.homey.app/u/Pascal_Nohl)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 2:38pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/165 "2026-10-12T14:38:24Z")
@deejayreissue @smarthomesven Can we please get back to the actual topic? Philosophising about standards, unified standards, or how easy it supposedly is to create a new standard or an entirely new system is outside the scope of this thread. The topic is still: **What does Homey do better, what does Home Assistant do better, and what could each system learn from the other?** ---
**Author:** ![smarthomesven](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/smarthomesven/32/79712_2.png) [@smarthomesven](https://community.homey.app/u/smarthomesven)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 2:57pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/166 "2026-10-12T14:57:56Z")
I think something that Home Assistant can learn from other systems is **choice of connection method**. In my network, I have almost all local communications blocked, since this improves the network security (one hacked device can’t compromise others on my network). Even Homey can’t reach LAN devices, since this is just the policy for the entire IoT network: **all local connections between devices should be blocked**. When I tried Home Assistant, I noticed that almost all of its integrations require a local connection, which is blocked. The only one I could find that does actually allow a server connection is Tuya. This is fine if you use an ISP router or any other regular router, but when you _actually_ care about your network security, this is not ideal. Homey, on the other hand, allows almost all apps to integrate via a server connection, which is better if you want to limit the impact of any attacks by blocking the LAN connections, since in case of attack devices would only be able to reach the internet. It might join a botnet or become a residential proxy, but this is easily spotted in the DNS logs and firewall logs. Local connections can’t be monitored as easily, so you would have no idea which device infected your other devices in case of an attack ---
**Author:** ![robertklep](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/robertklep/32/160628_2.png) [@robertklep](https://community.homey.app/u/robertklep)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 3:18pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/167 "2026-10-12T15:18:18Z")
> [@smarthomesven](#): > > The only one I could find that does actually allow a server connection is Tuya. There are literally hundreds of integrations that work over cloud connections ([here](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/?iot_class=cloud-push) and [here](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/?iot_class=cloud-polling)). And those are the built-in/core integrations, if you could HACS then the number will probably double. Many users on HA prefer local connections over cloud connections, so when given a choice, local access is prioritized over cloud access when integrations are developed. ---
**Author:** ![smarthomesven](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/smarthomesven/32/79712_2.png) [@smarthomesven](https://community.homey.app/u/smarthomesven)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 3:22pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/168 "2026-10-12T15:22:07Z")
> [@robertklep](#): > > There are literally hundreds of integrations that work over cloud connections ([here](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/?iot_class=cloud-push) and [here](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/?iot_class=cloud-polling)). I meant the only one that I could find for _my_ devices of course, I know many do use a server connection. I think Home Assistant would be great as a software hosted on a cloud VPS/server (similar to IFTTT, but of course HA has more featurs than ifttt), if only there were more cloud-based integrations… ---
**Author:** ![robertklep](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/robertklep/32/160628_2.png) [@robertklep](https://community.homey.app/u/robertklep)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 3:25pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/169 "2026-10-12T15:25:49Z")
> [@smarthomesven](#): > > I meant the only one that I could find for _my_ devices of course Homey didn’t either until you made apps for them, so what’s stopping you from doing the same on HA? 😄 ---
**Author:** ![Pascal\_Nohl](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/pascal_nohl/32/164446_2.png) [@Pascal\_Nohl](https://community.homey.app/u/Pascal_Nohl)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 4:03pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/170 "2026-10-12T16:03:07Z")
> [@smarthomesven](#): > > **choice of connection method** You do have a choice: you don’t have to use Home Assistant. But you also seem to be one of the very few people here who actively prefers a smart home that is heavily cloud-dependent. In professional automation environments, that is certainly not the norm. Homey itself is also designed as a **local-first** system. You have written a large number of apps that move devices or functionality into the cloud, but that is your architectural choice. It is not the same as Homey’s own “everything local where possible” philosophy. I also don’t think the security argument proves that cloud is inherently safer. A local device can of course still be compromised through a vulnerability, but a well-designed local network can strongly limit the damage through segmentation, VLANs and ACL/firewall rules. An IoT device does not need unrestricted access to the rest of the network. With Matter, communication is also authenticated and encrypted, adding another layer of protection. A cloud-connected device introduces a different attack surface: the device itself, the vendor’s cloud infrastructure, the account, authentication mechanisms and the connection between them. If the cloud account or service is compromised, that can also provide direct access to smart-home functions. So neither “local” nor “cloud” is automatically secure simply by definition. In the context of this thread, however, I don’t really see a meaningful Homey-vs-HA difference here. **Both platforms are fundamentally capable of local-first operation, and both can be extended in ways that introduce cloud dependencies.** So in the end, this is mostly an architectural choice made by the user, not a clear advantage of one platform over the other. ---
**Author:** ![smarthomesven](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/smarthomesven/32/79712_2.png) [@smarthomesven](https://community.homey.app/u/smarthomesven)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 4:04pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/171 "2026-10-12T16:04:23Z")
Homey already had Taoo, Kasa and Twinkly via the cloud. I wasn’t able to reverse engineer the Tapo or Kasa mobile app’s connection (tried it before for my RV30 Max Plus). > [@robertklep](#): > > what’s stopping you from doing the same on HA? 😄 Primarily because I have no experience with Python, but that is different for everyone of course. ---
**Author:** ![Pascal\_Nohl](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/pascal_nohl/32/164446_2.png) [@Pascal\_Nohl](https://community.homey.app/u/Pascal_Nohl)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 4:47pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/172 "2026-10-12T16:47:04Z")
> [@smarthomesven](#): > > Primarily because I have no experience with Python I had no experience with Node.js either — and still ended up writing five Homey apps. 😉 I do have experience with Python, but interestingly I haven’t needed it at all for Home Assistant so far. For example: - Some functions from my Fronius Homey app that were missing in the existing HA integration were easy to reproduce with Helpers and a small automation. - I built a fairly complex CO₂ savings calculation system using existing sensors, Helpers and Jinja. - The dashboard itself uses normal HA cards, sensors and a few templates. And, to be honest, I don’t particularly like Python as a programming language anyway. 😉 This is actually one of the things I find interesting about Home Assistant: you can extend the system quite far before you ever need to write a real integration. Here is my CO₂ dashboard as an example. It is built from existing integrations, sensors, Helpers and a little Jinja. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/uploads/athom/original/3X/7/c/7c573afeec53a3a8e734ccd409c8216703eb482a.jpeg) To achieve something comparable in Homey, I would most likely need a dedicated app plus suitable dashboard widgets/templates — assuming the required ones even exist. So not knowing Python is, in my experience, much less of a limitation in HA than one might expect. ---
**Author:** ![robertklep](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/robertklep/32/160628_2.png) [@robertklep](https://community.homey.app/u/robertklep)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 5:06pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/173 "2026-10-12T17:06:54Z")
> [@Pascal\_Nohl](#): > > Homey itself is also designed as a **local-first** system. I have to disagree. All the local-only stuff that Homey now offers is haphazardly tacked on, and it’s often flawed. For instance, I can’t create a local user without going through the cloud-hosted web app first. After that, I can’t easily add a _new_ local user, because I can only _invite_ people, and they apparently (I haven’t tried) need to create an Athom account before they can accept my invitation. The local web app often lags behind the cloud-hosted web app. The local web app also references external (non-local) resources. From what I know, the mobile app still depends on external servers too (as well as “Secure local access”, which depends on Homey retrieving Let’s Encrypt certificates from Athom servers periodically). You can’t install/update apps on your Homey without an internet connection, and without Homey being connected to the Athom cloud. I can probably go on, but the point is that Homey, at some point in its history (I’m going to guess from firmware v2.0) went from a mostly-local to a almost-exclusively-cloud system. ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Nono](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7feea3/32.png) [@Mike\_Nono](https://community.homey.app/u/Mike_Nono)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 5:21pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/174 "2026-10-12T17:21:36Z")
> [@robertklep](#): > > You can’t install/update apps on your Homey without an internet connection, and without Homey being connected to the Athom cloud. So you need internet connection to install apps? “Homey app install” don’t work unless you have an internet connection? ---
**Author:** ![robertklep](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/robertklep/32/160628_2.png) [@robertklep](https://community.homey.app/u/robertklep)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 5:24pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/175 "2026-10-12T17:24:25Z")
> [@Mike\_Nono](#): > > So you need internet connection to install apps? > “Homey app install” don’t work unless you have an internet connection? Hmm good point, I hadn’t thought of that. It’ll only work if you have access to the source of the app (but that’s the same for HA, although with HA, _all_ integrations/apps are Open Source). I’m actually not sure if `homey` works without a working Internet connection. My experiences are that it doesn’t, but that may have changed (I don’t use it very often). ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Nono](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7feea3/32.png) [@Mike\_Nono](https://community.homey.app/u/Mike_Nono)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 5:28pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/176 "2026-10-12T17:28:04Z")
You see, I have never tried to install an app. And have the internet disconnected, that’s why i ask 🙂 And yes, of course you need all the files (locally) for it to work anyway ---
**Author:** ![Pascal\_Nohl](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/pascal_nohl/32/164446_2.png) [@Pascal\_Nohl](https://community.homey.app/u/Pascal_Nohl)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 5:53pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/177 "2026-10-12T17:53:37Z")
> [@robertklep](#): > > I have to disagree. All the local-only stuff that Homey now offers is haphazardly tacked on, and it’s often flawed. You’re right. I oversimplified this by saying that Homey is local-first because the system and automations continue to run when the internet connection is lost. I actually didn’t know that the Homey app itself still requires internet access. That is rather strange to me. As long as the phone is on the same Wi-Fi network as Homey Pro, I would expect the app to communicate directly with it. Home Assistant does exactly that. The Companion App can connect directly to the local HA instance over Wi-Fi, so if the internet connection goes down but the local network remains available, I can still open the app and control the house. That is quite an important difference for something calling itself local. And yes, I also omitted app installation, which depends on Athom’s cloud. I initially wondered whether this was really different with Home Assistant, because obviously you need internet to download new software there as well. But there is an important distinction: **Home Assistant’s built-in integrations are already part of Home Assistant Core.** You don’t download them individually from a cloud service when you add them. Internet is mainly needed for updates, downloading add-ons or custom integrations, HACS and obviously integrations that themselves depend on cloud services. Once custom integrations are installed, they are simply files running locally as well, provided the integration itself doesn’t require an external service. So yes, I have to correct my previous simplification: **Homey can continue running locally without internet in many important respects, but it is still considerably more dependent on Athom’s cloud infrastructure than Home Assistant can be.** The Companion App is probably the clearest example: with HA, even the user interface can remain directly accessible over the local network when the internet is down. ---
**Author:** ![smarthomesven](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/smarthomesven/32/79712_2.png) [@smarthomesven](https://community.homey.app/u/smarthomesven)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 6:48pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/178 "2026-10-12T18:48:19Z")
> [@robertklep](#): > > with HA, _all_ integrations/apps are Open Source Who says that? If you build and include a native library in a custom integration and make it so that the integration itself is just a bridge between native library and the Home Assistant, you can still have a mostly closed-source integration. > [@Pascal\_Nohl](#): > > That is rather strange to me. As long as the phone is on the same Wi-Fi network as Homey Pro, I would expect the app to communicate directly with it. Almost all smart home systems I use stop working without an internet connection. Some exceptions, like Tuya where the newer models have Bluetooth fallback, and BanlanX, Briturn, Lepro and Nordlux also have Bluetooth fallback. Hue can work without internet via LAN. But all of my other devices require an internet connection. So I don’t see why that would be strange that Homey needs an internet connection as well? I personally don’t really care about that, since my WiFi AP needs internet connection to function properly anyway (when a client connects, it needs to authenticate the client via the Nebula Cloud Authentication, which won’t work without internet) ---
**Author:** ![Pascal\_Nohl](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/pascal_nohl/32/164446_2.png) [@Pascal\_Nohl](https://community.homey.app/u/Pascal_Nohl)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 10:19pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/179 "2026-10-12T22:19:21Z")
> [@smarthomesven](#): > > I personally don’t really care about that, since my WiFi AP needs internet connection to function properly anyway (when a client connects, it needs to authenticate the client via the Nebula Cloud Authentication, which won’t work without internet) I honestly don’t know how many times you want to repeat the same argument. You personally like cloud dependencies and are happy to build your smart home around them. Fine. But that does not make cloud dependency a desirable design principle. The industry is clearly moving in the opposite direction: **local-first operation**. Matter itself was designed around local IP communication and does not require a vendor cloud for basic device control. My own setup works exactly like that. Hue and Home Assistant continue to work as long as my local network, Thread, Zigbee and Wi-Fi are available. My Omada access points also continue to operate without internet. **I do not need an internet connection to run my smart home.** That is what I expect from a local system. Cloud services can add functionality and convenience, but they should not be a prerequisite for turning on a light, opening a door or even authenticating a client on my own Wi-Fi network. So when you say that you don’t care because your own network already depends on a cloud service, that is not an argument in favour of cloud dependency. It simply means that you have deliberately built even more cloud dependency into your own setup. And that is your choice. But please stop presenting that choice as if it invalidated the advantages of local operation. The general direction of modern smart-home standards is clearly towards **local control with cloud as an optional addition** , not cloud as a mandatory foundation. And stay on topic please. ---
**Author:** ![Pascal\_Nohl](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/pascal_nohl/32/164446_2.png) [@Pascal\_Nohl](https://community.homey.app/u/Pascal_Nohl)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 10:33pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/180 "2026-10-12T22:33:28Z")
> [@smarthomesven](#): > > Who says that? If you build and include a native library in a custom integration and make it so that the integration itself is just a bridge between native library and the Home Assistant, you can still have a mostly closed-source integration. There are two different things being mixed together here: **Home Assistant Core integrations** and **custom integrations**. For an **official Home Assistant Core integration** , the rules are quite clear. The integration itself is part of the open-source Home Assistant Core codebase, and if it uses an external Python library, that library must also meet Home Assistant’s dependency requirements: - its source code must be publicly available - it must use an OSI-approved open-source licence compatible with Home Assistant - it must be available on PyPI - even transitive dependencies have to use compatible licences So your example of putting most of the functionality into a proprietary native library and making the HA integration just a thin bridge **would not be accepted as an official Core integration**. For a new integration to be accepted into Core, it also has to meet Home Assistant’s current baseline quality requirements, including UI configuration, tests, documentation and the Bronze level of the Integration Quality Scale. A **custom integration** is different. Home Assistant does not review or audit third-party custom integrations. A developer could technically write an open/source-visible bridge to some proprietary component if the licence of that component allows it. But even then, the integration code itself can still be completely visible and inspectable. You can see exactly what it does and where it calls the proprietary component. What would not be open source is that external dependency. And if the code is merely visible but has no proper open-source licence, strictly speaking it is _source available_, not necessarily _open source_. So I would phrase it like this: **Official Home Assistant Core integrations — including their external libraries — must be open source. Custom integrations can technically depend on proprietary components, but then they would not qualify for inclusion in Home Assistant Core.** That is quite different from saying that you can create a “mostly closed-source” official Home Assistant integration by hiding everything in a proprietary library. ---
**Author:** ![deejayreissue](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/deejayreissue/32/81912_2.png) [@deejayreissue](https://community.homey.app/u/deejayreissue)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 10:55pm UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/181 "2026-10-12T22:55:16Z")
Sven might just be a Homey employee on the wind up ---
**Author:** ![robertklep](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex025/user_avatar/community.homey.app/robertklep/32/160628_2.png) [@robertklep](https://community.homey.app/u/robertklep)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2026, 5:26am UTC](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392/182 "2026-10-13T05:26:49Z")
> [@smarthomesven](#): > > Who says that? Fair enough, I was basing that remark on my many years of running HA and my knowledge of how (custom) integrations work, and how I’ve never seen an integration that isn’t open source. So yes, _in theory_ it doesn’t have to be open source. However: > [@](#): > > If you build and include a native library in a custom integration and make it so that the integration itself is just a bridge between native library and the Home Assistant, you can still have a mostly closed-source integration. Since HA runs on dozens (hundreds?) of different devices and platforms, this isn’t trivial. In fact, it’s probably impossible to set up in such a way that the integration will run everywhere. So you may be able to find closed source integrations that work on specific hardware, but I doubt you’ll be able to find many (if _any_, I’ve certainly never seen one). [Previous page](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392.md?page=8) [Next page](https://community.homey.app/t/homey-vs-home-assistant-what-does-each-system-do-better/159392.md?page=10)