Hey homey community, I’m new to the homey ecosystem, so I was hopping somebody can help me out here, because so far I feel like I’ve been riped off with the homey pro.
The main reason I bought the homey pro was to replace my hubs since it has every major wireless protocol in one device. Or so I thought. Of the 6 hubs, so far I managed to replace just 1 successfully, the ikea hub. The philips hue system acts inconsistent without the hub, and on several forums people were suggesting to keep the hub. So I thought that OK, I can keep that, since I will replace the rest. Then tried the flic smart buttons, only to be met with the message that I need the hub to be able to use them, which is weird because they use Bluetooth, so it should connect fine to the homey pro.
Moved on, tried the tado smart thermostats. Exactly the same message, that I need the hub for that also. Then the eufy system, surprise…same message…need the hub. The only one I haven’t tried, out of disappointment, was the Gardena hub.
I know it has other abilities, but without this all in one wireless protocols, it’s just a more advanced Google home.
Am I doing something wrong? Or did I just buy a 400 € replacement for my 10 € ikea hub??
Alex,
The “complain tone” can be addressed to support@athom.com, thank you😉
Here we’re trying to help eachother out, share hints & how-to’s, some laughs and some nonsense. Homey is not a perfect ‘replace all’ device, but I like it.
There’s tons of quite a lot of stuff you can use without hubs/bridges/gateways.
In your case only tado and Gardena need a gateway
Ikea: gateway not required
Philips Hue: hub not required
Not a Flic user, but a hub is not needed if I read the info:
Google Home is really something else. For instance it only has 5 types of triggers: speech, geofence, time, sun rise/set and “ignoring alarm clock”. Not even a sensor.
While the Pro is hard to come by these days, you’ll have it sold in no time.
I’m sorry if my tone was inadequate though I do have a bitter taste after the excitement of finally getting one (homey pro) to the disappointment that it’s not what I hopes, and I still have to find a solution for my to many hubs, and only 4 lan port on my router.
And yes the flic needs a hub or a phone, as you can see in the text. It just uses the phone as a hub, so in case you leave the house, that button will be useless for people left in the house, until you bring the phone back and it reconnects. At least that’s what I understood from that.
The philips hue does work, but like I said and others if you look online, it’s not close to perfect. For me it changes temperature of the light, so I will never know what it will be next time I turn them on. The philips hue hub never did that, so definitely not my lamps.
And I thought it’s a help forum also, if I posted wrong let me know, and I’ll move it, or delete it. Was hoping for someone who had similar issues and maybe solve them…before reaching to Athom.
I’m not trying to start a revolution here just looking for options.
If that’s the driving problem needing a solution it’s very easy by adding another very low cost ~25€ switch added. I realise it’s not as tidy or integrated an approach as you might like though.
That is true…i was hopping I could clean up a little after removing the hubs, and now I might need to add more (a switch). I will give this homey a try…seems like a pretty neat device, and who knows…maybe in the future I will find devices that dont need a hub, and change the ones I use now😊
If all manufacturers would stick to (the same). standards, would have public, preferrable local, API’s, would document those and not break them whenever they like then your vision may become reality. But that would probably also make stuff more expensive. Unfortunately this is far from the truth, so community developers build integrations on what they do have, which in some cases involves extra hubs. It doesn’t make Homey hardware useless though.
Homey’s strength is to have uniform access to devices from all these typesof integrations, and, contrary to Google Home, create automations based on those. Google Home can for instance only react to voice or time triggers, but not sensors. That makes Google Home useless as a home automation system. It is simply a voice controller.
Homey does all this in a user friendly way. Other open systems like Home Assistant are often more complex and require the same amount of hubs, if they support the device at all. And in the case of Home Assistant, it supports a lot, but you’d need a lot more dongles for all protocols.
Believe it or not, I tried to help by pointing out you only need 2 gateways in theory, Homey Pro is no comparison with Google Home, and if Homey Pro isn’t for you, you can sell it in no time with a very little loss imho.
The practical use is a bit different tho. As you said, Hue users like to keep the Hue bridge in the loop for several reasons: faster & bigger zigbee mesh; more Hue specific effects; stuff keeps manageble in case of an offline Homey.
FWIW, Ikea devices can’t get firmware updates without the gateway.
And somehow, you just kind of picked “all” brands/devices which need an own hub. ‘Somfy io’ is another example, and there’s probably some more.
But, to mention something, Somfy RTS works out of the box for instance.
I hope you can discover the plus side of the Pro, I think it really is a very nice and versatile tool.
I get that, the only thing I meant it was that if you keep all your hubs, then the homey pro in its self has no use of all its abilities (wireless protocols and such). Then they could just make a software similar to Google home that will react to your sensors like you say. I actually think that that’s what they are doing now (athom) with the new subscription for the new homey. I used it a little before buying the homey pro, and it’s exactly that. Logs in your accounts and uses that without any special hardware. They new homey it’s optional in that setup.
But I want a closed system, so I will give homey pro a try, and buy whatever new sensors, and devices I will need, and get rid of the ones that use hubs. Because at this point, with using hubs, it will not work offline, like it should. So I’m depending on the internet.
I will use it at maximum potential then
That is exactly my thought…maybe I just picked up the wrong devices, so will switch them as soon as possible. Well except for the hue obviously .
I played more with it and I found some pretty nice things to do with it…I’m definitely on board with this homey pro. Just need to figure the best setup for me.
I use pretty much every protocol Homey has, and still have a number of hubs, so none of the hardware is useless. Only IR is useless to me, as I put Homey in the middle of my house for range, and there’s no TV in the hallway on the first floor . Enter Harmony hub
What I can say about Eufy. If you have a stand-alone camera. The indoor cameras and all new solocams. Those will connect directly to Homey. Only the battery devices which are connected to the Homebase do need the Homebase. As the Homebase is the connection to the camera.
Because of big investment of putting cables…all my cameras are with batteries . So yeah…but the hub in this case its actually ok, because you can set it for wireless. So you won’t know it’s there…
The problem I’m having is that I can’t see no live video feed in homey app…is that something that’s not supported?
Nice…thanks a lot, I will definetly check that link out when I’m home . And now I understand how this part of homey is working also. Wasn’t sure if homey or eufy is the problem for not seeing video. So it’s only screenshots that can be shared to homey. Good to know.
PS… I will be buying one Google hub pretty soon, so that will be helpfull
Hi.
I will somehow agree with Alex.
When I for ? years ago bought the Homey Pro (new on the market back then), I also thought that, some or at the best, all my other hubs was history.
Now I have had a lot of fun with Homey, but have even more hubs.
You really have to research how your specific setup and future devices will “fit” Homey.
I often buy devices, only to find out that they cannot pair with Homey, or only by using a lot af Kung Fu.
I really enjoy Homey, for the fun of it, and I’m quite sure that my future will include more hubs, and use more power.
Just my 2 cent.
-Kurt
Yes…some don’t make enough research before buying…like me . But overall, after using it for 1 week, I can say that it’s a pretty versatile device…and from my point it’s worth the price. I can finally do ridiculously smart routines…that were never achievable before.
I was thinking from now I will do better research…and try to buy devices that are direct compatible with homey.
For me I try and go with cheap common mass produced brands such as SonOff , Shelly , Aquara , etc etc … They are cheap but the quality of those products is pretty good and have wide support on most platforms.
I also try and stick with buying Wifi based devices. Better response time , no connection issues , set and forget , just works …
I’d stay away from more expensive Zigbee and Zwave type devices. Other than costing more there are too many hassles and complications with that tech…
.
. Enter Harmony hub 
