Homey Pro vs. Futurehome

Updated 1 hour ago 10 minutes read

When building your smart home, you might find yourself choosing between Homey Pro and Futurehome. Both platforms offer comprehensive home automation solutions, but they approach smart home control in distinctly different ways. Let's dive deeper to help you determine which platform aligns best with your needs and preferences.

Different Approaches

Homey Pro and Futurehome use different approaches to home automation. Homey Pro focuses on local control and user empowerment; your smart home runs independently without relying on external servers or ongoing subscriptions. It is a complete, self-contained solution that gives you full ownership of your smart home system.

Futurehome, however, works as a service-based platform with cloud connectivity at its core. It offers a managed experience, where they deliver updates, integrations, and new features through their cloud infrastructure. While this provides convenience, it also creates ongoing dependencies and often requires subscriptions.

Ease of Use

Both platforms aim to make smart home control accessible, but they achieve this through different methods.

Homey Pro Experience

Homey Pro offers an intuitive setup process with automatic device discovery across multiple protocols. The Homey App provides a clean, modern interface that makes controlling your smart home feel natural and responsive. What sets Homey apart is its immediate functionality—once connected, devices work instantly without requiring cloud activation or account verification.

The platform supports desktop, tablet, and mobile control with consistent functionality across all devices. Advanced Flow provides a visual automation builder that's both powerful and approachable, allowing you to create sophisticated automations without technical expertise.

Introducing Homey Dashboards — Homey Pro features a clean, beautiful Dashboards control interface

Futurehome Experience

Futurehome provides a streamlined setup experience with guided installation and professional support options. The interface is designed for simplicity, focusing on essential controls and hiding complexity from everyday users. However, this simplicity comes at the cost of flexibility—customization options are more limited compared to Homey Pro.

The platform emphasizes remote monitoring and control through cloud services, making it easy to manage your home from anywhere. However, this connectivity requirement means your smart home functionality depends on internet availability and Futurehome's server infrastructure.

Device Control

Device control is where you'll spend most of your time with any smart home platform, so the experience here matters significantly.

Homey Pro Device Control

The Homey App's dashboard provides an elegant overview of all connected devices with real-time status updates. Each device type features optimized controls—lights get dimming sliders and color pickers, thermostats show temperature controls, and security devices display status indicators clearly.

Controls respond instantly because everything runs locally on your Homey Pro. There's no delay waiting for cloud servers, and your smart home continues working even during internet outages.

The Homey app features optimized device controls

Futurehome Device Control

Futurehome offers a simplified control interface that prioritizes ease of use over customization. The app provides basic controls for common device types, with a focus on reliability and consistency. While less flexible than Homey Pro, many users appreciate the straightforward approach.

However, device control requires internet connectivity, as commands are processed through Futurehome's cloud infrastructure. This can introduce perceptible delays and creates dependency on external services.

Device Compatibility

When investing in a smart home platform, you want assurance that it will work with your current devices and future purchases.

Homey Pro Compatibility

Homey Pro excels in device compatibility with built-in support for multiple wireless protocols: Matter, Thread, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 433MHz, and Infrared. This comprehensive protocol support means you can connect virtually any smart device without additional hardware.

The Homey App Store features over 1,000 apps covering thousands of device brands and models. Apps are vetted and approved, ensuring quality and compatibility. Whether you have Philips Hue lights, Sonos speakers, or lesser-known Zigbee sensors, Homey Pro likely supports them natively.

Homey Pro supports over 50.000 different devices

Futurehome Compatibility

Futurehome supports major smart home protocols and popular device brands, with a focus on products commonly available in European markets. The platform emphasizes tested integrations over broad compatibility, which means better reliability for supported devices but potentially limited options for newer or niche products.

New device support depends on Futurehome's development priorities and partnerships, which can mean waiting for official support rather than community-driven solutions.

Automation

Automation transforms a collection of smart devices into a truly intelligent home that responds to your needs automatically.

Homey Pro Flows

Homey Pro's Flow system makes automation accessible through visual building blocks. You create Flows using When cards (triggers), And cards (conditions), and Then cards (actions). This approach makes complex logic easy to understand and modify.

Advanced Flow takes this further with a drag-and-drop interface that shows the complete automation logic visually. You can create sophisticated automations involving multiple devices, conditions, and actions while maintaining clarity about how everything connects.

For power users, HomeyScript provides unlimited customization through JavaScript, giving you direct access to Homey's API for any automation scenario you can imagine.

Futurehome Automations

Futurehome offers preset automation scenarios designed to cover common use cases like "Away Mode" or "Good Night." These scenarios work well for typical needs but offer limited customization options.

The platform focuses on reliable, tested automations rather than maximum flexibility. While this ensures stability, it can be limiting if you have specific automation requirements that don't fit the predefined patterns.

Stability & Reliability

A smart home should make your life easier, not create new problems. Stability is crucial for daily reliability.

Homey Pro Stability

Homey Pro's local processing architecture provides inherent stability. Your smart home continues operating during internet outages, server maintenance, or cloud service disruptions. For added layer of stability, you can connect your Homey Pro via an Ethernet adapter.

The controlled app ecosystem reduces the risk of conflicts or instabilities, as all apps go through an approval process. Firmware updates are carefully tested and deployed with backward compatibility in mind. When issues do occur, they're typically device-specific rather than system-wide.

Futurehome Stability

Futurehome's cloud-dependent architecture means system stability relies on external infrastructure. Internet connectivity issues, server maintenance, or service disruptions can affect smart home functionality.

The managed approach does provide some stability benefits, as Futurehome handles system maintenance and compatibility issues. However, this comes with the trade-off of reduced control and increased dependency on external services.

Security & Privacy

Your smart home contains intimate details about your daily life, making security and privacy paramount concerns.

Homey Pro Security & Privacy

Homey Pro prioritizes privacy through local processing. Your automation data, device status, and usage patterns stay within your home network. Communication with external services only occurs when you explicitly configure integrations.

All connections use encryption, and the system includes built-in security features. Regular security updates ensure protection against emerging threats. Most importantly, your smart home data isn't stored on external servers or used for analytics or advertising purposes.

Futurehome Security & Privacy

Futurehome handles security through their cloud infrastructure, which includes professional security management and regular updates. However, this model requires transmitting your home data to external servers for processing and storage.

While Futurehome implements security measures, the cloud-based model inherently involves sharing your smart home data with a third party, which some users may find concerning.

Community & Support

Having reliable support ensures you can get help when needed and access to ongoing improvements.

Homey Pro Community & Support

Homey offers professional customer support backed by comprehensive documentation and an active community forum. The Knowledge Base provides detailed guides for setup, troubleshooting, and advanced features.

The Homey community creates apps, shares automation ideas, and provides peer support. Since Homey Pro operates independently, you're not dependent on continued service availability for basic functionality.

Futurehome Community & Support

Futurehome provides customer support as part of their service model, with professional installation options available in many markets. The support team handles both technical issues and service-related questions.

However, the service-based model means that support quality and availability depend on Futurehome's business continuity and service investment levels.

Pricing Model

The pricing models of these platforms represent fundamentally different approaches to smart home ownership.

Homey Pro Pricing

Homey Pro is available as a one-time purchase of €399

With Homey Pro, simplicity defines the pricing. You make a single purchase, and that's all—no monthly fees, no ongoing subscriptions, and no hidden costs. Your investment includes:

Complete hardware with eight built-in wireless protocols
Lifetime access to the Homey App Store
Ongoing firmware updates and new features
Local processing without cloud dependencies
Full ownership of your smart home system

This approach means your smart home remains functional regardless of subscription status or company changes.

Futurehome Pricing

Futurehome typically involves both hardware costs and ongoing subscription fees. The subscription model includes:

Access to cloud services and remote control
Regular feature updates and new integrations
Customer support and maintenance
Dependency on continued service availability

While the initial hardware cost might seem lower, monthly subscription fees accumulate significantly over time, potentially making Futurehome more expensive in the long run.

Should I Choose Homey Pro or Futurehome?

The choice between Homey Pro and Futurehome ultimately depends on your priorities and preferences.

Choose Homey Pro if you:

Want complete ownership of your smart home system
Prefer no ongoing subscription costs
Value local processing and privacy
Enjoy customization and flexibility
Want your smart home to work independently of internet connectivity
Appreciate extensive device compatibility
Plan to expand your smart home over time

Choose Futurehome if you:

Prefer a managed service approach
Don't mind ongoing subscription costs
Want professional installation and support
Prioritize simplicity over customization
Are comfortable with cloud-based processing
Have straightforward automation needs

Ready to Take Control?

Homey Pro offers the freedom to build your smart home exactly how you want it, without ongoing costs or external dependencies. With comprehensive device support, powerful automation capabilities, and complete local control, it's designed for smart home owners who want both simplicity and sophistication.

Your smart home should work for you, not against you. With Homey Pro, you get the reliability of local processing, the flexibility of extensive customization, and the peace of mind that comes with owning your smart home system outright.

Ready to upgrade from subscription-based smart home systems? Discover how Homey Pro can transform your home automation experience.