I’m considering migrating from HA to Homey. But I don’t quite understand how Homey best communicates with devices. I have both Ikea, Philips Hue and Aqara devices in my home.
Is it then recommended to use Ikea, Philips Hue and Aqara hubs respectively? Or should I just add them to the Zigbee interface on the Homey Pro/Bridge?
Any downsides to using the Zigbee interface on the Homey Pro/Bridge?
I have to warn you: Aqara (sensors) and Ikea lights don’t mix when both added to Homey zigbee. The sensors stop sending updates when connected to an Ikea light’s router, and worse, they stop looking for other routers as well.
This 5y or longer issue seems to be onresolvable for the Athom team. It occurs on both Pro 2016-2019 and Pro 2023 models.
I’d like to recommend to keep HA running with zigbee2mqtt, there’s no Aqara/Ikea issue whatsoever.
Also for support for new(er) devices H.A. beats Homey often.
Thank you, this is great feedback. Seems to me I either have to keep HA around and import the entities into Homey, or have separate hubs for separate device brands. I do have an Ikea and a Philips Hue hub kicking around somewhere, so that could also be an option.
I never knew about this issue. I got 3 Ikea Tradfri Drivers in my house and I use a plethora of Aqara P1 motion sensors, Aqara T1 Temperature and Humidity and a few T1 Water leak sensors throughout my house to control my entire lighting, and heating system. I also connected all three remotes that came with the Tradfri Drivers and programmed them to do a range of things around the house. Besides this I have a bunch of Ecodim Z-Wave dimmers and Fibaro Smart Switches. I never experienced any problems whatsoever. They are all connected directly to my Homey Pro, or secondary Homey Bridge. I just installed both the Aqara app, Ikea Tradfri app, the Ecodim App, and the Fibaro app, and everything just connected instantly.
From looking at the release notes of the Ikea Tradfri app, I can see that they made a lot updates to the app over the last year that have to do with zigbee and adding Product ID’s. Not having a product ID could cause some issues with rejoining and restoring the mesh network after a device has been disconnected and rejoined. So I think the team is aware of the potential issues and might have already solved them. There have been a total of 21 updates to the app in the last year so it is being actively maintained.
I don’t use Ikea hubs or Aqara Hubs. All the lights and sensors are connected directly to Homey with Zigbee and mesh well together. What exactly is the issue then?
Seems like the experiences varies a bit from person to person, then. Good to hear that it’s possible to both have devices connected directly to the Homey hub, or to have devices connected to their respective hubs.
No, sorry. It depends on in which way you want to connect the devices. This is what I try to say.
Homey zigbee is problematic for Aqara sensors, when you want to use Aqara sensors and Ikea lights as directly paired zigbee devices.
This is reported by many other users as well, using either the Pro 23 or older models.
Homey works fine with Aqara and Ikea lights when Aqara uses an Aqara hub, or when Ikea uses an Ikea hub, or when both use their own respective hubs to connect with Homey.