I have many smart devices but no central hub. I’m a network engineer in my day job too, so I can work with HA if needed
Money is interchangeable with time too ie: you can spend time to save money, or you can spend money to save time. Looking at HA, I figure I could use it as a “back end” for “stuff that doesn’t yet work with Homey” and it can apparently take hours in HA that can be done in Homey Pro, in minutes
In that sense, £400 for this device seems like a fairly decent price. If you consider that the effort is basically outsourced to a company.
The other rationale is, “it looks like my mum could use this” Good UI / UX should never be underestimated. It’s part of why iPhones sell so well too
I’m sure HA will “get there” eventually to the point that it’s plug and play almost completely but this certainly seems like something that can do the same things with less time required
I hope I’ll have the same opinion as I start setting it up lol
I’m curious where this assumption comes from?
HA automatically presents you the integrations for many found systems on your network. You only have to follow the questionnaires for configuring.
Homey is not active that way, you’ll have to find and add everything yourself, device by device.
HA Automations evolved a lot the last year, user friendliness has gone up.
Homey automations, for me, were easier to get and the UI is nice.
HA is (way) quicker with discovering & adding new devices,
I.e:
(HA) Zigbee2mqtt: enable “join allowed” mode, now you can enable pair mode on all zigbee devices (multiple as well) without even looking at the UI; they all get added (if supported of course)
Homey: each zigbee device has to be added one by one, the right apps need to be installed as well. When support for your device is missing from the app store, (very) low chance it works anyhow.
HA Tuya wifi: enter credentials, and after just a few moments all supported Tuya devices and all scenes are added.
Homey: each device must be selected and added one by one. For unsupported devices you need to use Tuya scenes or Raw commands.
Of course I don’t know about mum’s capabilities, but for many it really is not easy imho.
It might be easier to learn compared to HA though.
The Homey commercials are very slick, the downsides are often left out.
Like I wrote, it’s miles ahead of Homey. Homey is plug and pray.
Don’t get me wrong here, I like Homey and started my home automation with it, but I added HA along the way out of curiosity, the beautiful dashboard possibilities, and moved many devices to HA.
The systems can be integrated very well imho.
Homey also have a lot of problems with different devices in 1 single network, for example Ikea Tradfri and Aqara sensors together do not work.
Adding GU10 lights in the sealing is DRAMATIC with Homey.
HA is more complex, less beautiful, but much more reliable, have firmware update support and many benefits over Homey. Only working and relying on Homey, never do that, because it is NOT the one hub for all, definitely NOT
