I have my house full of Kaku stuf, including 433Mhz and Zigbee devices. I am seriously thinking about buying a Homey (possibly the Pro version) but I am concerned with the complaints that I read about the range of the 433Mhz devices. Most devices are whitin 5 mtr range, but do go through walls.The big question is: will this work ? Any advice is welcome.
Thanks.
No one will tell you.
It can be depending on many factors.
You have to test it yourself.
First thing you need to know, that you’re going to buy half-product. You may thinking that you’re buying hardware which can work independently. It’s not true. Homey Pro needs to be connected to Internet and Athom servers must work to be able to login and setup your Homey. “Advanced flows” works only from the browser, but Homey doesn’t include web panel installed on hardware you’re about to buy. Web panel is only available through Internet.
Can you imagine that you’re buying device, let’s say router, or NAS, and you cannot go to this device IP address to configure your device, because there is no built-in configuration panel?
You bought it, paid qute amount of money, but it’s not fully yours.
You don’t have full control of your device. It depends on external services.
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@Idso_Brouwer I see you are new here so big welcome the Homey community!
In my opinion none of the Smart Home Hub is perfect. More than likely some people will have different opinions but high level this is how I summarize it with the Hubs I use. Since we are on the Homey community, I will cover Homey a little bit more than the others.
From my least favorite to my favorite Hub:
- Google Home: lack of features to visualize or interact with the data of your smart home, requires internet, privacy concerns, limited customizability. On the positive side I like some of their devices / integration, they do have a lot of partnerships but not everything is supported.
- SmartThings: Not as reliable as I wish it was, limited customizability, similar devices compatibility than Google Home. On the positive side, I love their energy management the most. 3D maps of your home is not bad either.
- Home Assistant: much more complex (even if that’s improving it is still a long way to go), maintenance that break things. Just check how long it take in HA to create a Dashboard and you will get it
. On the positive side: Endless compatibility and customization. - Homey: More expensive than other Hubs (until Google or SmartThings starts to charge us to use their service I guess). Not everything will work with Homey but it already covers a lot of devices and services, if you just start with Smart Home, I would definitely check their best buy guides to buy devices. some complaints about Zigbee stability but myself and others on this forum don’t have problems. Make sure you follow their best practices and refrain from adding and removing Zigbee devices all the time without resetting the Zigbee network if you did. On the positive side: I love the UI of their app and web app a lot, their Advanced flow on the Web is amazing, The new Dashboard that are coming looks beautiful and the Homey community is great
Also, if you just get started with Smart Home, try to prioritize buying devices that support the Matter standard. The Matter standard is not yet perfect, and it does not evolve as fast as I wish it was but that will help you with all the compatibility issue going forward.
Overall Smart Home Solver did a good job to summarize it on his Youtube channel:
That was my 5 cents and I hope it will help you make an informed decision.
Thanks very much for this thorough summary of the different smarthome options.
I am not new to the smarthome world and am currently running an ICS-2000 from Klikaanklikuit and a HomeAssistant on a Raspberry Pi. The Kaku is rather old, does not support Matter and Thread and is a closed system. The Hass I find way to complicated to explain to a novice (my wife for instance 
) and even I (as a programmer) find it cumbersome to create a dashboard with all the bells and whistles. So I agree with you.
The Homey seems to be the best option at this moment and that is why I joined this community. The only worry I have is the range of the 433Mhz system. I am hoiping that someone can confirm that and extra bridge can indeed be used as a range extender for the 433Mhz devices.
Thanks again for the great reply to my question; it really helped.
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Correct the Homey Bridge as a satellite device connected to a Homey Pro probably fixes a RF 433 MHz range issue if that is an issue in your home.
Actually, when I got my Homey Pro 2023, the only devices I had were lots of KAKU-plugs. My Homey is not in a central place in my apartment (so not in the most ideal location) and still all KAKU-plugs worked. Before, I also had an ICS-2000, which was located in the same place as the Homey now. So in my view the 433-range of the Homey Pro 2023 is no worse / at least as good as the ICS-2000.
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Thanks
Thanks, good to hear !
