I have been on Homey coming to a year now on May 30th but I held off updating to v2.0 because the upgrade didnt seem to be too compelling but just last week I decided to take the plunge because the native google assistant support (something I was waiting for) was too good to pass up.
For context, I’m not a very advanced user, in term of setups I have a pretty modest setup about a dozen zwave mcohome smart switches, aeotec (x2) and aquara motion sensors (x4), Neocool cam door scanners (x2), Yale smart lock (zwave), + various chromecasts, Google home minis, wifi smart switches (linked by ifttt to homey) etc. I use smart presence app mostly for presence management and have additional apps like better logic, countdown and Virtual device.
I found the following review very helpful https://h4sh.automate.asia/blogs/guides-and-reviews/review-homey-firmware-v2-0-and-what-to-expect-during-an-upgrade
It warned me that flows triggered by my MCOhome smart switches would need to be redone, so I took screenshots of the more complicated flows.
I crossed my fingers and updated and the good news was I did not seem to need to repair anything . The flows on the other hand needed work
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As expected the flows triggered by MCOhome , had to be redone by adding back the “When…” part . Those were easy to sport becuase the flow editor indicated which ones were problematic (the icon)
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Less easy to spot was flows that used the countdown app. Unlike in #1 there was no indication the flow needed to be updated. So i rechecked my flows and it was as easy as just tapping on the default suggested flow.
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Initially my motion sensors but aquara and aeotec motion sensors didn’t seem to be working so well. In particular , the rules for the grouped aquara motion sensors didnt seem to work so well. Anyhow I redid them and they seem to work except a lot slower than before.
I vagually remembered someone on forum talking about slower zigbee response times after update, so I left it as it was, but by the next day they were back to normal.
All in all it took me about half a day to fix all of this. The other half was spent tuning my Google assistant routines as I had created a complicated number of routines to workaround the fact i had to say “Hey google, tell homey …” most were not unnecessary now with native google support.
Some comments about 2.0
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Google assistant native support - It’s noticably faster now, but still a touch slower than Alexa? Still, I suspect a lot of the delay is still in the voice recognition, hopefully when Google releases their new google assistant voice model that is much smaller and supposedly runs locally, the delay will be cut down even more.
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The homey app - It’s a much more refined experience. I never used the 1.5 app at all because it would take forever to load, each time you opened it.
The 2.0 app is obviously more refined in design, though like many I wish there was an option to let us choose which tab as the default home. I also am kinda of in two minds with the homey timeline.
I sometimes accidently swipe away notifications and timeline prevents this. So I have set Homey up to log important events like door opening & people coming in and out.
Though I can see why others might want a more actionable home screen, the fav device and flow section allow a max of 3 each before you need swipe to see more. That’s a bit too few.
One thing i notice is that when I am on a different wifi network as Homey, the app is clearly slower to load. It would often say “Homey is offline” etc. That said, I noticed that by default Homey is not given app permission for storage? Once I allowed it that, it seems to work better, though could be still slow to load and I still get “Homey is offline.” messages
My wife who uses 1.5 app a lot, still thinks 1.5 looks nicer and she doesnt like the Homey is offline messages she occasionally gets. Also I wish we could change the wallpaper? The constrast in color isnt the best too.
The flow editor on the mobile is not too bad once you get used to it,but I’m glad they added a web version of it. You still have to use the app to setup devices, but that’s not a big deal.
Overall Homey 2.0 is an improvement, not a huge one by any means if you dont care for Google assistant native support in which case all you get is the new app.
The next major thing that is missing, I’m looking forward to is Backup features…
