I am new to Homey and looking to purchase my first Homey Hub. I noticed that there is the Homey Pro and the Homey Pro Mini. I have recently upgraded my home. I did have just smart Bulbs (still got them) but now added Smart Wall switches. In the future thinking of other devices to be added.
So, the number of devices is getting up there.
What product do you recommend. Will the Homey Mini do what I need?
There is nothing really taxing going on, so no outrageous automations.
For me, the power and ease of use of the Homey Pro lies in its ability to seamlessly connect to all smart devices including Matter, Thread, Zigbee, Z-wave, BLE, 433mhz and Wifi. With Homey Pro, I hardly need to think about whether a device will work or not. I have several Zigbee, z-wave and even some 433mhz devices. And I recently ordered some Switchbot CO2 air monitors which have BLE. They all just integrate without needing dongles or separate bridges. This is the main reason I chose Homey Pro over Home Assistant and I donât really see the value of the Homey Pro Mini tbh.
If you are only interested in connecting zigbee, matter or thread devices, then the mini would be a good option. But as of now, there arenât so many matter or thread devices out there. Most of the useful devices are still either zigbee or z-wave. So in real life, you will find yourself stuck with using zigbee devices, or buying the Homey Bridge on top of it.
Itâs certainly true that you need the Full Fat Homey if you want to add devices other than zigbee/matter/thread. For me though, I really didnât need to do that and have just moved over onto a Homey Mini.
I use Hue lights etc, Tapo plugs, Tado X for heating, Aqara (all sorts), Switchbot, and sundry bits and bobs - 70+ devices in all. Most of these via the various branded hubs. Itâs all heavily automated and is using about 50% of the storage and 70% of the memory. Works great.
I have always stuck to pretty mainstream brands and donât mind having the Hubs where needed (I had them already), so my device choices havenât really been limited by the mini.
More seriously devoted home automation experts will, of course, want to use a wider range of devices, and want the Fat Pro. That also has extra storage, which I assume you might need if you want to install a lot of apps and device brands (I think Homey say about 20 for the Mini, I currently have 13 at 50% storage).
Others may have other advice, but mine would be:
Check whether your current or likely near/mid-term devices will work with the Mini, with or without additional hubs.
Work out whether any additional kit is more than the significant price difference between Fat and Mini - if so, maybe go Fat.
If not, go Mini. You can add a Homey Bridge later if you ever do need the extra radios.
As you can see, it depends a lot on which exact kit you have already and whether you want to go deep into apps etc. Iâm sure folk in this forum will offer good advice, if you want to share details.
That is indeed another thing to consider. Many devices communicate via matter only through their own hubs. So if you have those hubs already, and you are fine with them, you will be able to integrate those devices into Homey Pro Mini.
However, if you donât want all of those hubs, and you want Homey Pro to replace all of the hubs and really be the center of your smart home, You really need the full Home Pro.
Remember that each of those hubs, cost money too and also consume a substantial amount of power.
One big downside: the bridge is wifi only;
Now the latest Homey finally has an onboard ethernet connector, the extra radios will have communicate over wifi FFS!
Could work fine, could be a nightmare.
The Mini has half the amount of RAM (an âeconomicâ 1GB), compared to the Pro 2023.
As some (or most) of us have discovered, this quickly limits the number of apps you can run > This is not applicable for app-less Matter devices
I think the Fat Pro is also Wifi, unless you buy a dongle? Which you can, of course.
My Mini is via Ethernet to the router, but many of the devices are Wifi. Iâve never run the Mini to the router over Wifi but Iâm not sure how much of a problem that would be for the relatively low traffic it needs. Do we know what % people have had nightmares with the bridge (or a Fat Pro on Wifi)? Iâve had to give much more attention to zigbee than Wifi coverage for the devices that I have (older house with apparently radio-opaque brick internal walls).
Also, of course, thatâs only an issue if you actually need the bridge radios (I donât, but Robert might, depending on his devices).
On the RAM:
My own experience is that Iâm nowhere near using it all (see above) and have no more apps to add right now. Of course, if you have a need (or desire) for many apps itâs best to get the insurance of the extra RAM. Iâm assuming that any need for a load more apps than mine would either be driven by a much bigger diversity of device brands, or wanting a lot more âautomation supportâ type apps for power user automations? Of the latter, I only have âCountdownâ and the official Homeyscript app.
From Robertâs original post, it doesnât sound like he has a lot of different device brands, nor want to make seriously nerdy automations, but that might not be true.
All moot if his current lights and switches need the Fat Pro radios that the Mini doesnât have.
It doesnât sound to me like the RAM size will be an issue.
However, Iâm not familiar with Smart Life. Youâll need to know that it works well with Homey (Mini or not) and whether the radios in the Mini are appropriate.
A quick google suggests that Smart Life is actually by Tuya, and there are some community Tuya apps in the Homey library, but I donât know any more about the requirements or the reliability of those.
Hopefully, someone else in the forum has experience of that and can advise you.
Tuya Cloud is the only working app for Homey Pro series, Russel
The bridge as Pro Mini extension is something completely different from the bridge as Homey Cloud extension.
Homey Cloud (often wrongly called Homey Bridge) canât run Tuya apps (yet).
The âofficialâ Tuya app runs, but it doesnât allow new users > so useless.
more than 40 years of experience in computers with Memory and Storage, if you think âit will never be usedâ , Never will be Soon, and often before you wanted to replace a systemâŚ
It you can upgrade buy what is economical and upgrade later for less.
If you canât upgrade memory/storage buy the biggest you can afford now even if extra RAM cost relative more now.
[This is a slight off-topic and philosophical reply, so @Robert_Lewis , feel free to ignore it!]
Hi, Dijker
I think itâs more nuanced than just âIf you canât upgrade memory/storage buy the biggest you can afford nowâ. Otherwise, for example, my technically limited sister-in-lawâs recent (and imaginary) work bonus means I should recommend that she buy a fully stacked Mac Mini Pro over a base Mac Mini for her email and simple spreadsheets.
You might, rightly, say that Iâm being ridiculous, because the expected use, the pace of technology change and the expected lifetime of the Mac means she is unlikely to ever use that much memory. You could also say, rightly, that she might have better uses for the money she spent on the upgrade.
I think itâs really a complicated bet based on likely usage, relative cost, lifetime of the device and what else you want to spend the money on while you donât use the maxed memory.
In my case for example, I bought a Homey Mini, as:
I have a limited need for apps. I have masses of memory headroom now, and everything works fine. It seems unlikely that Iâll suddenly need double the memory in the next year or two at least.
Pace of improvements in Home Automation have meant that I have replaced kit on a fairly regular basis. I expect that will continue!
I donât expect to be using the same hub in 3 yrs but, if I do, a 3 year write-off of the lower price and an upgrade then is a good bet (almost certainly with other improvements and better features for the price).
Mileage will obviously vary greatly for different people. For myself, Iâm willing to bet you 3 Euro that whenever I replace the Hub itâs for reasons other than running out of memory.
Also, I have 47 years in the industry, which means I must be right
For Infrared, Bluetooth and RF433 signals, Yes it could.
But for others you also could improve the signal mess with mains powered Z-wave or Zigbee devices. The the Homey bridge doesnât have real benefit then.
Homey Pro is more expensive compared to Homey Pro Moni + Homey Hub. The combo provides same connectivity protocols as Homey Pro. I got the two piece version
Almost, you forget one, imho one major, downside:
Pro 2023 has all protocols are onboard;
But with the Combo, z-wave/IR/Ble/433MHz need to communicate over wifi⌠(the Bridge lacks a ethernet connector).
This could work fine, but it also could be a nerve wrecking experience.
