Has anyone tried the new Homey Pro and moved their SmartThings setup? I ran across this article. https://homey.app/en-us/blog/smartthings-transfer-to-homey/.
The new Homey pro is still only pre-order. The one thatâs available now is the Homey bridge.
Their comparison article is both inaccurate and out of date. Smartthings does support the European frequency of zwave on its European models.
In addition, they donât mention either thread or matter in their comparison table, both of which are supported by smartthings, and are not yet supported by Homey.
Thread support for Homey Pro (Early 2023) is expected to be released in Q3 of 2023. For now, in order to pair Matter devices that use Thread, it is required to have another Thread Border Router on your Wi-Fi network (e.g. Apple HomePod Mini, Google Nest Hub 2, etcâŚ).
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Homey Apps do not support Matter yet.
In their comparison charts, they also donât mention that you are limited to five devices on Homey bridge (the one thatâs available now) unless you pay a monthly subscription.
So it seems somewhat unreasonable for them to compare their âadvanced rules engineâ to smartthings when theirs requires a subscription. You could do the same thing they do by adding sharptools to smartthings, and it would cost less per year.
Iâm also not crazy about the fact that they donât explain that you have to subscribe to their cloud service in order to get backup capabilities. That sort of seems like the opposite of what you would want from a back up feature to me. I mean itâs good that they have one, but it might also not be available to you at the time when you wanted it.
So basically, I hate their marketing. It reads like a Kickstarter instead of something from an engineer. But thatâs my prejudice.
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I wondered about some of that. Iâve read most of their web pages. I saw the subscription issue. I think you can back up on your PC if you donât want cloud backup. Supposedly, everything runs locally, although if thatâs the case, why would you use SharpTools which needs an internet connection? It might be more for the dashboard, I suppose. Anyway, something to think about. My 2015 SmartThings Hub isnât getting any younger.
The backups on the current models donât. (And they use their proprietary cloud, you canât back up to your own server. ) And they require a paid subscription. Not sure how it will work on the yet to be released new pro model.
Homeyâs last 7 backups are stored in the cloud. Backups are bound to the account of the Homeyâs owner. A maximum of 3 Homeys can be backed up at the same time.
In short, one account can store a maximum of 21 total backups. You can manage and delete your backups at My Backups on the Homey website.
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Also, this is one of those âsort of trueâ answers.
Hubitat and Home Assistant both run fully local except for away from home control (duh!) and integration with cloudbased third party services. And theyâll run that way forever even if the company/organization shuts down.
Homey, however, require reauthorizing an access token from the proprietary cloud every 14 days. If you lose your internet (or the company shuts down) on the 13th day since your last authorization, you get one more day of use, and then it stops working.
See the following detailed discussion in Homey forums:
Athom states that âHomey is not dependent on cloud services to operate (unlike some other systems)â.
However, thatâs not correct: Homey requires access to the Athom cloud services for authentication. Once the Homey mobile or desktop app is authenticated, it receives an access token that is valid for a certain amount of time (I think 14 days). During that time, Homey can be accessed locally without an internet connection. However, when the token expires, local access stops working and you need a working internet connection again.
If your internet connection drops out and the current token is almost expired, youâll run into issues.
Connect to homey without internet - Questions & Help - Homey Community Forum
We should also note that at the time of this writing Homey does not provide integrations that work with thirdparty cloud services that require two factor authentication, like Arlo. Currently it looks like most people are using IFTTT as an intermediary for partial integration.
None of this, of course, is to say that homey is a bad system. Just that every system has pluses and minuses, and companies like homey and smartthings that write their websites in marketing speak can make it difficult to see exactly what the differences are.
we should also note that there are reports just this week of integration problems between Arlo and smartthings, which is a new and as yet undocumented issue. The Homey issue is an architecture limitation and applies to a number of brands.
I have a Homey Pro 2019 and Homey Pro 2023 that Iâve been using for development, so I can speak to some of the questions.
Edited to add: Iâm not making any recommendations here - just trying to share what knowledge / experience I have on the subject. I continue to use a mix of platforms in my home and as the founder of SharpTools I tend to dabble across many smart home products!
Even with our own community, Iâve always tried to maintain the same approach SmartThings has with allowing open discussion even of things that could be seen as âcompetitiveâ. That being said, I think your best bet is likely to post in the Homey community if youâre looking for feedback on it. Most people who have moved over to a new platform are easier to find in that platformâs community (at least when they donât still have their toes dipped in both waters).
Yeah, it looks like this article and the linked comparison were each written 3~4 years ago and it doesnât look like theyâve been updated recently.
Sort of. Homey was originally built as the âProâ version in 2016, but they werenât using the âProâ moniker at that point in time. The âproâ has been their mainstay product and continues to be. Just over a year ago, they introduced their new âHomey Bridgeâ product which is what was alluded to in many of the replies here.
The bridge was the first Homey product that was available globally (dynamic RF region) and the Homey Pro 2023 continues that trend. As such, most feedback youâll find on Homey will tend to be from Europe as those are the people that have been using the âproâ since the 2014 Kickstarter days.
I would also note that the 2023 Pro was announced late last year and began shipping early this year in âEarly Accessâ. I think they are trying to be very intentional with that as they knew it was a shift to a new platform and there might still be some things to work out. The 2023 platform seems stable, but they still have some new features that they are continuing to layer in (eg. Matter, âSatellite modeâ with extra hubs/bridges)⌠so Iâm not sure if theyâll move it out of Early Access once their inventory catches up with demand or what the plan is.
The Homey Pro comes with a built-in automation feature they call âFlowsâ. The 2016 version came with a basic version of Flows and you could pay $25 to get their âAdvanced Flowsâ feature which was released in the last year or so and is more like a Node RED style automation feature with flexibility to allow multiple triggers, complex conditions, etc.
The 2023 Homey Pro comes with âFlowsâ and âAdvanced Flowsâ included.
Yes, just reiterating JDâs point that the Homey Bridge is the one that requires a subscription for many of the meaningful features - including more than five devices, insights, variables, etc.
To get automatic backups, yes. You can take a manual backup of your Homey Pro using the USB-C connection. Of course, the downside of that is you need to temporarily disconnect your Homey Pro - so itâs more targeted for planned situations like when youâre manually migrating.
That being said, if you want the peace of mind of automatic backups, itâs only $10 / year which is pretty reasonable if itâs something youâre concerned about.
I have a homey pro 2023 incoming. Am mostly planning to use it to control all my thermostats, space heaters etc, since controlling the indoor climate is to complicated with smartthings which doesnât support all the brands i have. Also the possibility to control the heating with its integration to Tibber (hourly energy prices) seems really good. Weâll see, if itâs all it claims to be, some lights may find itâs way over to homey too. I do like the advanced flow editorâŚ
Since SharpTools works with both ST and Homey you may be able to write rules for cross system automations.
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