I am a long-term smart-home user. I started with Hubitat and subsequently tried SmartThings, Google Home and openHAB before moving to Home Assistant.
Home Assistant can do almost everything I need, but after three years I am tired of YAML, workarounds and continual tinkering. I want something polished that my children can use and setup without needing to reverse-engineer the system whenever something changes. The system feels like a linux - deep, too deep for most users.
I now have more than 120 devices across Tuya, TTLock, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, Matter over Thread, Matter over Wi-Fi, iZone, Polestar, Meross, WiZ, Philips Hue and one or two I might have forgotten. The system needs a substantial overhaul, so I was genuinely pleased to see how far Homey appeared to have progressed. I decided to test it as a potential replacement for Home Assistant before undertaking the considerable job of migrating everything.
My initial impression is mixed. I love Homey’s interface, simplicity and overall integration philosophy. Unfortunately, some very basic limitations appeared almost immediately.
First, I installed the Reolink integration. The cameras connect successfully, motion and vehicle detection work, and live video works in the Homey Android app. However, the live feed does not work in the Homey web interface.
I have tested current versions of Chrome, Edge and Brave. The cameras, network configuration and streams are demonstrably functional because they work in the Reolink app, Home Assistant and the Homey Android app. I also tested the H.264 RTSP substream through a virtual camera. The problem appears specific to Homey’s web video implementation.
Is reliable Reolink live streaming in the web interface officially supported? If so, what is the correct configuration? If it is not reliably supported, why is such a fundamental feature still dependent on the client being used? The support page does little to explain this.
Second, I attempted to create a Dashboard from my computer and discovered that native Homey Dashboards can only be created in the Android or iOS app. I created one on Android and then returned to the web interface, expecting it to be available there. It was not. Apparently, native Homey Dashboards cannot be viewed or edited through the desktop web interface at all.
I find that design decision extraordinarily difficult to understand. Homey supports phones, tablets and watches and provides a desktop web interface, yet its dashboards are excluded from the platform with the greatest available screen space. I have a 43-inch computer display that is considerably better suited to configuring and displaying a comprehensive smart-home dashboard than a phone.
Is native desktop/browser Dashboard support planned? Is there an official method of opening my existing Homey Dashboard on Windows that I have overlooked, rather than installing an unrelated third-party dashboard system?
I appreciate that community developers provide many Homey integrations, but the overall experience is still presented and sold as one Homey platform. From a user’s perspective, the distinction between a platform limitation and an integration limitation matters less when a basic function simply does not work consistently.
I have seen another new user receive a rather defensive response after expressing similar disappointment. I am not posting simply to criticise Homey or argue that Home Assistant is universally better. I genuinely wanted Homey to provide a more mature and family-friendly replacement, and I still want to understand whether my first experience is unrepresentative.
For users operating larger and more varied installations: are these isolated limitations, or should I expect similar restrictions across many of my 120-plus devices and integrations?
I would appreciate direct answers, particularly from anyone using Reolink cameras and Homey with a desktop computer. I would much rather discover that I have missed something than conclude that the platform cannot support my intended use.
