Homey Pro is the one smart hub to rule them all...or is it

**Homie Pro: A Comprehensive Smart Home Solution**

Homie Pro is a cutting-edge smart home system that offers a unique blend of features and functionality, making it an attractive option for those looking to automate their homes. The device itself is compact and easy to set up, with a user-friendly interface that allows users to quickly get started with automating their smart home devices.

One of the standout features of Homie Pro is its ability to integrate thousands of devices into its system, making it an ideal solution for those with large smart home networks. This feature also allows users to see what's going on as far as energy consumption for their devices in real-time, providing valuable insights into how much power their devices are using and when they're most likely to be using it. This information is especially important for those who have solar power or live in areas where energy consumption is expensive.

The Insight section of the Homie Pro app provides users with a wealth of information about their smart home devices, including voltage levels, energy usage, and other relevant metrics. This data can be used to identify potential issues with device compatibility and optimize energy efficiency. Additionally, the app allows users to see how their devices are performing over time, providing valuable insights into the overall performance of their smart home system.

However, despite its many features and benefits, Homie Pro is not without its flaws. One of the major drawbacks is that it's not easy being the one "Hub to rule them all," as it were. While Homie Pro does a great job of supporting thousands of devices, this also means that it may not support every device on your smart home network. In fact, some devices may require additional setup or hacking together an app to incorporate with Homie Pro.

For example, my Nanoleaf panels are officially supported by the Homie app and worked flawlessly right out of the box, while my smart dimmers, however, are also officially supported but have a tendency to disconnect constantly. This means that I've had to rely on community support to make them work properly, which can be frustrating for those who value ease of use.

Another potential issue with Homie Pro is its compatibility with existing smart home products. While the device itself is compatible with many devices, some may require additional setup or configuration to work properly. In my case, I've had issues with my Robot vacuum not being supported at all, which has meant that I've had to rely on community support to find a solution.

Despite these drawbacks, Homie Pro remains an attractive option for those looking to automate their smart home devices. The device itself is well-built and easy to use, making it accessible to users who may not be familiar with smart home technology. Additionally, the company behind Homie Pro has been around for nearly 10 years and has released many devices over that time, indicating a level of commitment to supporting its customers.

One potential advantage of Homie Pro is its ability to run your entire smart home locally, assuming you have the devices to support it. This means that users can enjoy their smart home without relying on internet connectivity, which can be a major boon for those who value their privacy.

However, this advantage comes at a price. The Homie Pro device itself costs $399, which is a significant investment for many users. While this may seem steep, it's worth noting that the device does not come with any subscription services, so you pay your upfront fee and that's it. Additionally, while some devices may require additional setup or hacking together an app to work properly, this can be a worthwhile trade-off for those who value the convenience of a comprehensive smart home solution.

In conclusion, Homie Pro is a powerful and feature-rich smart home system that offers a unique blend of automation and energy efficiency. While it may not be perfect, with some compatibility issues to address, it remains an attractive option for those looking to automate their homes. With its ability to run your entire smart home locally and its extensive support for thousands of devices, Homie Pro is sure to be a valuable addition to any smart home.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is a smart home hub called homie Pro since I started using homie Pro it's become an essential part of my smart home just as much as a smart plug or a smart bulb might be the problem with homie Pro though is that when it doesn't work it really really doesn't work let's start with what homie Pro actually is think of homie Pro as a brain for your smart home a lot of people will have lot lot of different Smart Home Products from many different brands all running on different protocols you'll have a smart hub for your lights then you'll have a different hub for your locks and then you'll have multiple apps to run everything it can be a huge mess homie Pro solves this problem by bringing Everything Under One Roof everything runs through homie Pro and then the best part is is that everything is then run through one app making it so you can go to one place and control everything about your smart home you're probably wondering how the homie Pro can do this inside the homie Pro you'll find a Linux based computer think of it like a Raspberry Pi but beefed up incorporated into this computer are connections for all the major smart home protocols zigg Z-Wave matter thread Bluetooth infrared you name it homie pro has got it this allows homie Pro to either connect to or in some cases completely replace the smart home hubs that you already use making it the One-Stop shop for everything in your house having all of your smart home devices funneled into one Hub is cool and all but it doesn't really mean anything if the software that allows you to connect to that Hub isn't any good thankfully this is where homie really shines I think the homie software is so good that it might even be the best companion software I've ever used the homie Pro offers software that works both on your smartphone and your desktop the desktop version has some more capabilities than the smartphone application but they're pretty much designed exactly the same so what I'm teaching you now on the desktop is also going to work for your smartphone so when you first open the app you're presented with your home screen this gives you quick access to information about what's going on at your home you have some weather up here you have the people that live in your home you have some quick devices you know things that you access all the time and then some favorite flows here in the devices section you can see all the smart home devices I have in my home organized by room that's how I've done it but you can organize this any way you want to so this worked best for me but whatever works best for you go ahead and do it homie Pro gives you full customization here inside each room I have total control over all the devices in that room so for example with the TV lights in the living room I can click this button here click over here and turn them off now the TV lights are off or I could go over here and control the slider a little bit and turn them on turn them up turn them down whatever I want to do so this is something that you've probably seen before in like the Google home app for example but the homie Pro gives you access to everything even things that the Google home app wouldn't support in addition to that you also get more direct control over a lot of devices for example where the Google home app might just allow you to turn the device on and off the homie Pro app is going to give you access to much more control than just that flows are basically routines or automations this is what homie has called their automation system flows are really easy to put together and can be really powerful so let's start with a really simple one that I created this is my Sunrise automation so the way this works is is you have your when and your and and your then so when the Sun rises and I'm home or my partner is home then and then I have a list of things that happen after that all happens so if the sun is rising and I'm not at home and my partner's not at home none of these things happen so that's where the power comes in because now all you have to do is drag and drop things around add cards in take cards away and build your perfect routine and you can have as many of these as you want working at all sorts of different variables this is another cool one that I created this one is based on a motion sensor I put inside my cat's litter box so when the litter box motion detector goes off meaning my cat went into the litter box and the TV is off and it's between 8:30 a.m. and 1000 p.m. then the vacuum comes out and cleans right in front of the litter box because when my cat gets out of the litter box he brings some of the the litter out with him so this is a really cool routine that you could create with homie Pro and this took me maybe 5 minutes to put together which may not be the case for a lot of people who are using something like home assistant because you have to learn all sorts of coding tricks to do that if you wanted to get more robust about what's going on in your smart home there is a script editor in homie Pro you have to install it and you have to learn a bunch of stuff but if you're the kind of person who wants even more control over their smart home homie Pro can give that to you of course you might just be doing the same thing with home assistant already so you wouldn't really see a need to switch over to homie Pro but the benefit of this is that if you start with homie Pro using the simple flow system and then decide you want to advance to something else then homie Pro can provide that for you another thing I want to touch on is this Insight section this allows you to see what's going on as far as energy consumption for your devices in your home for example with this desk light you can see uh the power usage over the past few few days you can see when it was on when it wasn't on how much power it was using and you can get a good idea of whether or not that device is sucking too much power from your grid this is especially important if you have solar power or are in a place where energy consumption is super expensive but you can see voltage you can see all sorts of different things in all these helpful graphs so you can really get an idea of what's going on in your house at any given time so you're convinced that homie Pro is super cool but what's the catch the catch is is that it's not easy being the one Hub to rule them all although homie Pro does a great job of incorporating thousands and thousands of devices into its system not everything is going to be covered and this can create some serious compatibility issues with the Smart Home Products that you already own for example my nanoleaf panels are officially supported by the homie app and they worked flawlessly right out of the box my smart dimmers though are officially supported but for some reason they disconnect constantly pretty much every day which means that at least once a day some of my flows don't work properly and then my Robot vacuum isn't supported at all I have to rely on Community Support to make it work which basically involves hacking together an app to incorporate with homie itself these issues mean that homie Pro is not the set it and forget it device that you might be hoping for unfortunately you're either going to have to do a ton of troubleshooting have to buy new smart devices to incorporate with homie or wait until a IAL support comes to homie for the devices that you already own this is a big problem but it hasn't been a big enough problem for me to stop using homie I still love it because I love the software and I love that it works with most of my devices and I'm just hoping that over time the other devices that I'm having problems with will get fixed eventually these problems I've mentioned with homie Pro prevent me from recommending it to just any smart home user the way I see it there are two types of smart home owners the first has some devices a light some plugs maybe a lock they don't need homie Pro on the flip side you have people who have so many smart devices in their house and so many routines and automations to cover them all that their entire life is basically automated those users definitely could use homie Pro but they're probably already invested in the home assistant ecosystem and they probably already have a server running everything so homie Pro would be kind of ir relevant really homie Pro is designed for the people in the middle the people who have a lot of smart home devices and want to get into automations but at the same time don't want to get into home assistant or people who want to get into the power of Home assistant but don't want to build anything for them homie Pro is a perfect all-in-one system you buy it you set it up you get going it's easy to use the learning curve is low and you can get started making your smart home dreams come true I want to wrap this up by addressing the elephant in the room which is price here in the United States the homie Pro cost $399 $9 that's a lot of money for a device like this especially when you know that if you want the home assistant route you could build something yourself for less than half that keep in mind though that the homie Pro doesn't involve any subscription Services you pay your $399 and that's it you never have to pay anything again also the homie Pro is capable of running your entire smart home locally assuming that you have the devices to support that if you do you could run your entire home without any internet connection which be a real Boon for people out there who value their privacy the company that creates homie has been around for nearly 10 years and has released a lot of devices over those years most of which are still supported today so investing in a homie Pro is a good idea in the long run because you are going to get the support that you need over the next few years the only thing you're going to have to accept is that you're going to have to do a lot of troubleshooting when you first take it out of the box and you might have to replace some of your smart home devices or wait until those devices get support but if you can look past these flaws the homie Pro is going to be a great addition to your smart home just like it was for minethis is a smart home hub called homie Pro since I started using homie Pro it's become an essential part of my smart home just as much as a smart plug or a smart bulb might be the problem with homie Pro though is that when it doesn't work it really really doesn't work let's start with what homie Pro actually is think of homie Pro as a brain for your smart home a lot of people will have lot lot of different Smart Home Products from many different brands all running on different protocols you'll have a smart hub for your lights then you'll have a different hub for your locks and then you'll have multiple apps to run everything it can be a huge mess homie Pro solves this problem by bringing Everything Under One Roof everything runs through homie Pro and then the best part is is that everything is then run through one app making it so you can go to one place and control everything about your smart home you're probably wondering how the homie Pro can do this inside the homie Pro you'll find a Linux based computer think of it like a Raspberry Pi but beefed up incorporated into this computer are connections for all the major smart home protocols zigg Z-Wave matter thread Bluetooth infrared you name it homie pro has got it this allows homie Pro to either connect to or in some cases completely replace the smart home hubs that you already use making it the One-Stop shop for everything in your house having all of your smart home devices funneled into one Hub is cool and all but it doesn't really mean anything if the software that allows you to connect to that Hub isn't any good thankfully this is where homie really shines I think the homie software is so good that it might even be the best companion software I've ever used the homie Pro offers software that works both on your smartphone and your desktop the desktop version has some more capabilities than the smartphone application but they're pretty much designed exactly the same so what I'm teaching you now on the desktop is also going to work for your smartphone so when you first open the app you're presented with your home screen this gives you quick access to information about what's going on at your home you have some weather up here you have the people that live in your home you have some quick devices you know things that you access all the time and then some favorite flows here in the devices section you can see all the smart home devices I have in my home organized by room that's how I've done it but you can organize this any way you want to so this worked best for me but whatever works best for you go ahead and do it homie Pro gives you full customization here inside each room I have total control over all the devices in that room so for example with the TV lights in the living room I can click this button here click over here and turn them off now the TV lights are off or I could go over here and control the slider a little bit and turn them on turn them up turn them down whatever I want to do so this is something that you've probably seen before in like the Google home app for example but the homie Pro gives you access to everything even things that the Google home app wouldn't support in addition to that you also get more direct control over a lot of devices for example where the Google home app might just allow you to turn the device on and off the homie Pro app is going to give you access to much more control than just that flows are basically routines or automations this is what homie has called their automation system flows are really easy to put together and can be really powerful so let's start with a really simple one that I created this is my Sunrise automation so the way this works is is you have your when and your and and your then so when the Sun rises and I'm home or my partner is home then and then I have a list of things that happen after that all happens so if the sun is rising and I'm not at home and my partner's not at home none of these things happen so that's where the power comes in because now all you have to do is drag and drop things around add cards in take cards away and build your perfect routine and you can have as many of these as you want working at all sorts of different variables this is another cool one that I created this one is based on a motion sensor I put inside my cat's litter box so when the litter box motion detector goes off meaning my cat went into the litter box and the TV is off and it's between 8:30 a.m. and 1000 p.m. then the vacuum comes out and cleans right in front of the litter box because when my cat gets out of the litter box he brings some of the the litter out with him so this is a really cool routine that you could create with homie Pro and this took me maybe 5 minutes to put together which may not be the case for a lot of people who are using something like home assistant because you have to learn all sorts of coding tricks to do that if you wanted to get more robust about what's going on in your smart home there is a script editor in homie Pro you have to install it and you have to learn a bunch of stuff but if you're the kind of person who wants even more control over their smart home homie Pro can give that to you of course you might just be doing the same thing with home assistant already so you wouldn't really see a need to switch over to homie Pro but the benefit of this is that if you start with homie Pro using the simple flow system and then decide you want to advance to something else then homie Pro can provide that for you another thing I want to touch on is this Insight section this allows you to see what's going on as far as energy consumption for your devices in your home for example with this desk light you can see uh the power usage over the past few few days you can see when it was on when it wasn't on how much power it was using and you can get a good idea of whether or not that device is sucking too much power from your grid this is especially important if you have solar power or are in a place where energy consumption is super expensive but you can see voltage you can see all sorts of different things in all these helpful graphs so you can really get an idea of what's going on in your house at any given time so you're convinced that homie Pro is super cool but what's the catch the catch is is that it's not easy being the one Hub to rule them all although homie Pro does a great job of incorporating thousands and thousands of devices into its system not everything is going to be covered and this can create some serious compatibility issues with the Smart Home Products that you already own for example my nanoleaf panels are officially supported by the homie app and they worked flawlessly right out of the box my smart dimmers though are officially supported but for some reason they disconnect constantly pretty much every day which means that at least once a day some of my flows don't work properly and then my Robot vacuum isn't supported at all I have to rely on Community Support to make it work which basically involves hacking together an app to incorporate with homie itself these issues mean that homie Pro is not the set it and forget it device that you might be hoping for unfortunately you're either going to have to do a ton of troubleshooting have to buy new smart devices to incorporate with homie or wait until a IAL support comes to homie for the devices that you already own this is a big problem but it hasn't been a big enough problem for me to stop using homie I still love it because I love the software and I love that it works with most of my devices and I'm just hoping that over time the other devices that I'm having problems with will get fixed eventually these problems I've mentioned with homie Pro prevent me from recommending it to just any smart home user the way I see it there are two types of smart home owners the first has some devices a light some plugs maybe a lock they don't need homie Pro on the flip side you have people who have so many smart devices in their house and so many routines and automations to cover them all that their entire life is basically automated those users definitely could use homie Pro but they're probably already invested in the home assistant ecosystem and they probably already have a server running everything so homie Pro would be kind of ir relevant really homie Pro is designed for the people in the middle the people who have a lot of smart home devices and want to get into automations but at the same time don't want to get into home assistant or people who want to get into the power of Home assistant but don't want to build anything for them homie Pro is a perfect all-in-one system you buy it you set it up you get going it's easy to use the learning curve is low and you can get started making your smart home dreams come true I want to wrap this up by addressing the elephant in the room which is price here in the United States the homie Pro cost $399 $9 that's a lot of money for a device like this especially when you know that if you want the home assistant route you could build something yourself for less than half that keep in mind though that the homie Pro doesn't involve any subscription Services you pay your $399 and that's it you never have to pay anything again also the homie Pro is capable of running your entire smart home locally assuming that you have the devices to support that if you do you could run your entire home without any internet connection which be a real Boon for people out there who value their privacy the company that creates homie has been around for nearly 10 years and has released a lot of devices over those years most of which are still supported today so investing in a homie Pro is a good idea in the long run because you are going to get the support that you need over the next few years the only thing you're going to have to accept is that you're going to have to do a lot of troubleshooting when you first take it out of the box and you might have to replace some of your smart home devices or wait until those devices get support but if you can look past these flaws the homie Pro is going to be a great addition to your smart home just like it was for mine\n"