The Homey Bridge concentrator is a dream. It’s a tempting proposition to control all your home automation devices from different manufacturers from a single interface and replace all your hubs with one for less than $100. But in our case it was of little use.
Posted at 11:00 am
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Unless you can find everything from a single manufacturer, most home automation enthusiasts will have to learn how to handle multiple applications or even install multiple hubs on their router. This is our case with around 40 lightbulbs, sockets, switches, thermostats, speakers, doorbells and other smart devices, 3 hubs and 16 different manufacturers.
Hard, the life of a techno critic and incorrigible amateur of connected devices.
So here is the Homey Bridge, “the last smart home hub you will ever need”, promises the manufacturer Athom BV, headquartered in the Netherlands. Compatible with “a thousand manufacturers”, this hub uses almost every wireless protocol that exists in a home, from WiFi to Zigbee via Bluetooth, infrared, Z-Wave and even the 433 MHz sometimes used by older devices.
It all starts very well with the installation of that big hard plastic washer that you don’t need to plug in anywhere near the router as it relies on wifi. We download the Homey application from the App Store or Google Play Store, create an account and our Homey Bridge will be recognized immediately.
Little coquetry, the puck has at its base a rotating ring of multicolored light that can be disabled in the parameters.
The second tab of the Homey application allows us to add our home automation devices through a search menu. We enter the “brand name” and if compatible, we are prompted to enter the connection information about this manufacturer.
Let’s be positive and present what worked in this first part. A LIFX lightbulb, a TP-Link switch and a Roomba vacuum could all be fully supported by the Homey Bridge while offering all of their usual features. Our Sonos devices have also been added, with minimal controls for volume, pausing, or fast-forwarding or rewinding songs.
The other interesting feature is in the Flow tab. In summary, home automation devices can be associated with hundreds of triggers. For example, the sunrise or your presence turns on a lightbulb, plays music, or opens a blind. The possibilities are practically endless and the ones we tried worked well.
As a last function, you can get the power consumption of the devices that are switched on and monitored by the Homey Bridge.
Connecting more than five devices requires a subscription to Homey Premium, which costs $3.99 per month, which is very reasonable. With the purchase you are entitled to three months free of charge.
We love less
With four compatible manufacturers, we encountered exactly nine brands that were not compatible. That’s bad news: three of them, Sinopé, Cync and Insteon, are our favorites and make up two-thirds of our home automation devices.
Three other brands, WiZ, Nest and LG were added but offered absolutely no control. Seeing a Nest Cam saying “No commands available” is useless.
Minimal control over Sonos speakers is fine, but we’re a long way from what the Sonos app allows for.
You buy?
We cannot rule out that some home automation enthusiasts may come across brands that are 100% compatible with the Homey Bridge. In particular, Philips Hue, Sonos and Fibaro are explicitly mentioned on the Homey page.
But in our experience, this purchase is simply not worth it. Devices from our four compatible manufacturers don’t even need a hub. All of our devices, without exception, are recognized by Google Assistant and Alexa and can be controlled by voice or via mobile apps. Here we have two examples of platforms much more universal than Homey Bridge.
Homey Bridge
Manufacturer : Athom B.V
Price : $99
note : 4 out of 10