I bought the Homey Bridge because I thought I had finally found a device that could integrate all my smart devices into one app. After one week, I still can’t believe that I paid $80 plus a monthly subscription for software that lacks so much basic functionality.
In my opinion, these are the things that need to be fixed:
Add groups to the app! This should be a basic function, regardless of whether you pay $80 for the bridge or $500 for the PRO.
Support for third-party apps from the community. Right now, most of the useful apps like weather services and HomeKit are only available on the PRO. I understand that you want to earn money on the PRO, but most people do not need all the functions it offers. I would have no problem paying $6-8 on a monthly subscription to get this option.
While on the topic of subscriptions, I should not be forced to pay $3 a month just so I can add more than 5 devices to the hub I already bought.
Hide devices that do not have input options like the Homey Bridge, wall switches, etc. This would make the device list more organized.
The flow section on the home page would look much nicer if it were shown like tiles.
I guess you didn’t fully understand the hardware difference between the Pro and the Bridge when you bought the Bridge.
The Bridge is a simple device that only sends out commands on ZWave, IR etc… All processing of apps / flows is done in the cloud, not on the bridge itself.
The Pro has hardware that enables it do everything on the device itself, it runs without the cloud and all processing is done locally.
So for example the Pro can directly communicate with HomeKit on your network, process the data and interact with it, the Bridge can’t.
For the Bridge to work with HomeKit it would have to sent all HomeKit status information to the cloud, the cloud would have to process the info and sent a command back to the Bridge. Which would make it too slow.
I understand that the PRO is a more advance device, but since it’s all cloud based on the bridge it still do not explain why you can’t add groups and hide devices. Also as i stated i would have no problem to have a subscription on the use of third party apps. Weather services etc should be possible to just use a cloud based API to fetch info that can be used in flows.
It’s also interesting that the state of the software would have been obvious by trying out a free subscription without the purchase of the bridge or signing up for the premium service.
I’m not defending the choices Athom have made regarding this service (OK, maybe the choice of not accepting unofficial apps), but complaining about having paid for something that works just as advertised which also was available to try before buy doesn’t get much sympathy from me.
Also a design decision, they wan’t you to buy a Pro when you desire such functionality
Could indeed be possible, but again there was a decision made to not make that available, you guessed it, it was decided at Athom.
In the end Homey (Cloud) with a bridge does not meet your needs, now you’ll have to decide if you want to continue this path or choose the path that does fit your needs.
I think that the pro and the bridge are aimed at two very different demographics.
The homey bridge (as mentioned) has limited hardware in order to keep the cost down. This limits what’s available.
Athom has very limited control over the community apps, community developers can change items, break things, write code with bugs etc.
Rightly or wrongly there is an expectation that offical apps are going to be easier to use and more stable.
So you pick up your $80 device, which has limited hardware to keep it cheap, you can only install offical apps which are supported, easy to install and just work.
I think perhaps you may fall into the second demographic, ultimate control to do whatever you want and hands on to work your way through it.
ever realized that software is way more expensive than hardware….