The new Homey Pro — Ask Me Anything

I don’t doubt for a moment it would be possible, but at some point you just have to let go of legacy, moving to a new hardware platform is an opportunity not to be missed.

I do understand the sentiment, but still, Homey Pro 2023 is set to be delivered Q1 2023. It’s very likely it will be beta first for some time, do you really want to jump the wagon at such early stage with the home automation you (and presumably your family) relies on?

Same with the migration path. Yes, I think it should be there, but having it from the start means it has to evolve with any changes made to the Homey Pro 2023 firmware while in it’s first phase. Developing the firmware to a stable user ready version can be done so much faster if it doesn’t have to keep up with keeping the migration tools up-to-date. I personally am not gonna use the Homey Pro 2023 as daily driver until what is planned for Q2 is delivered, so for me migration tools don’t have to be there until that stage.

But that’s just me, your results may vary, see this as food for thought :wink:

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Same goes for me!
I’ll update and test my apps, and might try a backup-restore-migration sometime(s) when it’s available, but the final migration will probably be a few months.

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Please, please make migration from Homey Pro (2016-2019) available before launch. At least for connected devices. It’s a real pain pairing all the devices again.

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Then wait to fully migrate before trully switching :wink:

Why would you need to switch at launch? Can’t you keep the old ball up a few months?

(just wondering why not switching would be an issue for users)

I have a question for the livestream please:

I see on the not supported page that the soundboard app will not be available. However, the soundboard app also allows me to play the sounds i uploaded to Homey through my Sonos speakers. Will this function be ported to the Sonos app, or will i loose this ability? Because as i see it now, i will not be able to do this anymore since the Soundboard app is what allows me to upload the sounds.

I literally use this everyday!

There are already ways to do this, check my apps through my profile page.

And i already asked Emile about it: if the will not keep Soundboard as a storage on the Homey Pro to be used with other apps, i will create one (that also works and is needed by the Homesh Controller Apps).

  1. Please please please :pray: create a migration option. It will save me an enormous amount of work!

  2. Please let us know if we can use some form of a local speaker with text to speech and a soundboard. I use this a lot in my scripts and don’t know how to solve this without buying more expensive hardware.

I know about your UMP alternative, however this is not useful for me. I don’t want to be relying on a server connection, i want it to draw from my Homey storage.

The Homesh option is not useful for me as i don’t use the Homey speaker but my Sonos speakers. Or do you mean you will have a seperate soundboard app on New Homey Pro, that stores the files on New Homey Pro?

A solution has already been developed and is in testing (and design) stage:
[Vote] Feature App: Homesh: Connect Pro 2023 to Old Homey Pro for Led, Speaker, Zwave(satellite) and network resource - Apps - Homey Community Forum

This way you can just keep the Old White Ball and Control it directly in the flows from your new Black HockeyPuck!

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Yes, if Soundboard does not stay as storage on the HomeyPro Early 2023, i will create an App that allows mp3 and wav’s (or just files) to be stored through the App Settings (just like Soundboard), for which you can get the url through a flowcard and api, for easy use with Sonos, Homesh Controller & Satellite, Samsung TV (open browser with URL) and HomeyScript(and any other App that allowes a Url ofc or perhaps base64 file through the API).
Just like the Google Services App works for a big part i guess.

I also will be using it that way with Sonos, and i’ll make sure that this abbility is available if needed!


Solution:

Together with the Ftp Server from Micro Web Server App

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Thats good to know, thanks. For me this is truly a dealbreaker. Nice to know you will be actively creating a solution.

Also, now that i am talking to you. Thanks for taking over Chronograph. Another app that i use very often, which is very important to my smarthome!

Your welcome!

Perhaps you are able to test the new SDK3 version from Chronograph Test version | Homey.
I need a few more people telling me the new version works well, i don’t have enough experience in using the App myself, only use it a little since a few months.

That would be awesome!

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Hey, apparently, you can allready do this with the Micro Web Server App voor Homey | Homey.
Use that Url for Sonos. :slight_smile:
Thanks @DaneedeKruyff

I would expect that it is not important which Homey hardware you have to restore a backup. Reason: the device has hardware abstraction and APIs to discover which capabilities the device supports. So consider it a platform on which apps can run, and the hardware should not matter.
I do realise that certain capabilities (like speaker, led ring etc.) are no longer supported so there are limitations. It would also be good to have a graceful way out of those, so we are not stuck with dozens of broken flows on the new device.

Question: Homey pro 2023 will come with 3 z-wave antenna’s. Can more than one be used as the same time so that Europe and US units can coexist or just enable on one ?

It is not legal to use the US frequency here in Europe or vice versa. Pretty sure it is not possible without modifying the firmware. Athom doesn’t claim for nothing in the keynote that the device automatically switches to the correct frequency / antenna.

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Quickly looking at the documentation of the z-wave chip used, it isn’t possible at all, even if the firmware would allow it, the Z-wave chip used only has 1 pin used for antenna usage, so enabling both frequenties would pretty much lower the transmission power in half.
The switching (and filtering) is done outside of the (main) z-wave chip itself too.

You could better ask if the Long Range function is used :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:, but probably not.

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but they definitely have contact with the community, and listen,
only they will not easily give the competitors more info than necessary.

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Question :

  1. The Homey Pro (2023) is being release as as early access, I am not sure if everyone has the same expectations as to what this means. In which quarter are your suggesting that the device be ready to be used by the average user as their primary smart home hub?
  2. You mentioned that ‘not everything will be 100%’, are you able to give examples to the community of that this will mean, ie. will a device not work, or is it possible that frequency might not work, or will it be possible that all your devices/flows will be deleted?
  3. Q4/Q1 product has being the equivalent as an alpha, early beta, beta, or RC product?
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Q: Will we be able to change the zigbee channel without having to reset the entire zigbee network? Sometimes useful when interference from nearby 2.4GHz wifi networks becomes an issue.

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