Homey (smart hub)
Homey is a smart home hub manufactured by the Dutch company Athom B.V.
Homey has a mobile & web app interface with an open API that allows third-party developers to add support for their products in Homey. Like other smart home hubs, the purpose of Homey is to act as a central point of configuration, control and monitoring of components in a smart home. An automatic control flow is nicknamed a "Flow" in the Homey app.
History[edit]
Homey was originally started as a Kickstarter project in May 2014 by Emile Nijssen and Stefan Witkamp,[1] and the company Athom B.V. was founded to take care of the development. In 2015, private investors invested 1 million euro in the company.[2]
Models[edit]
Homey (2016)[edit]
In 2016, the first version of the Homey was released after having started as a Kickstarter project in 2014. The first generation of Homey had a built-in microphone and software for speech recognition,[3] and as such could be regarded as both a smart speaker and a smart home hub. It had support for connecting over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, Z-Wave, 433 MHz, 868 MHz and infrared light.
Homey (2019)[edit]
In 2019, the second generation of Homey was released. Notable hardware changes include removal of the near-field communication module due to little use, as well as removal of the microphone because Homey had deemed it to not be good enough to function as planned.[4]
The software was also updated to version 2.0, and older equipment could also be upgraded to this version. Some of the changes in the software was a more complete mobile app, while support for the desktop application was removed. Support was added for lighting control using KNX.[5] The Homey second generation had a hardware with 512 MB random-access memory and a single core central processing unit.
Homey Pro (2019)[edit]
Homey Pro was also launched in 2019 at the same time as the second generation of the Homey base model, but the Pro edition had a twice as powerful hardware with 1 GB of random-access memory and a dual core processor.[6]
Homey Bridge (2022)[edit]
Homey Bridge was announced during a livestream on September 7, 2021, as an optional wireless antenna for the then-introduced cloud-service.
Supported technologies are Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, Zigbee, Z-Wave, 433 MHz and Infrared.
Homey Pro (2023)[edit]
A new generation Homey Pro was announced during a livestream on October 12, 2022, and started shipping in Q1 2023.
Notable changes are a new flat design, similar to Homey Bridge, based on a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, shipping with a quad core processor, 2 GB of random-access memory and 8 GB flash storage.
Supported technologies are Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, Zigbee, Z-Wave, 433 MHz, Infrared, Matter and Thread.
Supported devices[edit]
The Homey software has partial support for integration with selected components from other smart home systems, such as Philips Hue, IKEA, Google Nest, Chromecast, Logitech Harmony, Spotify Connect and Sonos.[5]
Homey claims to support over 50 000 different devices[4][7] from over 1000 brands.[8]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Homey gives your living room a voice | Engadget
- ^ Athom funded for over 1 million euros with latest investment round ! - Archive // EIT Digital
- ^ This voice-activated smart hub feels Homey - CNET
- ^ a b Athom Homey (2019) - Test - Tek.no
- ^ a b Review: Athom Homey 2.0 - Smart home hub for all your smart devices
- ^ Guide: Athom Homey kan det meste
- ^ SmartThings vs Homey – Smart home system comparison | Homey
- ^ Athom Homey Pro Smart Home Hub launched plus Homey v2.0 app - A hub for Z-Wave, WiFi, BLE & more