Homey Pro and Home Assistant are both very capable smart home hubs to control and automate your home. So what’s the difference? Read on and discover everything you need to know.
Both Homey Pro & Home Assistant look at tackling the same inter-connectivity issues present in modern smart homes. Home Assistant requires a hands-on approach. It is created by, and designed for, smart home enthusiasts with intermediate to advanced programming skills. The platform itself can be installed on many different devices, such as a Raspberry Pi. Home Assistant offers a configurable and customisable interface with integrations, add-ons, and advanced automations that are created & shared by a worldwide community. Adding on cloud-services or voice control functions does cost an additional 5$ per month.
Homey Pro on the other hand is designed to work right out of the box. With an easy setup, guided pairing processes, and intuitive Flow creations, Homey is the better plug & play smart home hub. Additionally Homey Pro offers direct customer service, cloud services, and voice control functions for its users with no additional costs. Homey Pro has 7 wireless protocols built-in, so you never need to go looking for any additional hardware or USB-dongles, unlike with Home Assistant.
Homey Pro
€ 399,-
Home Assistant
€ 65 - € 300
Mobile App
Tablet App
Web App
Supported Devices
50,000+
1800 (Integrations)
Supported Technologies
7
Depends on added hardware
Wi-Fi
Additional hardware required
Zigbee
Additional hardware required
Z-Wave
Additional hardware required
Bluetooth
Additional hardware required
433 MHz
Additional hardware required
868 MHz
Additional hardware required
Infrared
Additional hardware required
Voice Assistants
Yes (via Paid Cloud Service $5 / month)
Basic Automations
Advanced Automations
Energy Tracking
Monitoring
Yes (With Add-On)
User & Roles
Privacy
Scripting
Open Platform
Apps
What makes a smart home smart, is that you can easily control it from all of your favorite devices.
Mobile App
With Homey Pro, you can access your smart home from anywhere in the world. Available for iOS & Android.
Mobile App
With Home Assistant, you can access your smart home using a mobile app for iOS & Android. Access is only possible locally (at home), unless tweaks are made to your network configuration or by adding the paid cloud subscription (5$/month).
Tablet App
The Homey App for tablets expands your screen space. Full control over your home in one view. Available for iOS & Android.
Tablet App
The Home Assistant App for tablets expands your screen space. Full control over your home in one view. Available for iOS & Android. Just like the mobile app, this is only accessible locally (at home).
Web App
Quick web access is perfect for a smooth workflow - especially when organizing your home, or editing advanced Flows.
Web App
Home Assistant offers access to your home direct from your browser (PC or Mac). Configuring your own dashboard is possible, but to get the most out of it, it does require some time and possible coding. As standard only accessible locally (at home).
Apple Watch
When you have the Homey app installed on your iOS device, it automatically becomes available on your Apple Watch — allowing you to start your favorite Flows from your wrist.
Apple Watch
With the Home Assistant app for Apple Watch, you can display device information as complications directly on your watch face or trigger actions to take place. Some coding may be required.
Connectivity
When choosing a smart home hub, you want to be sure that it connects with all your devices at home — now and in the future.
50,000+ devices
Homey connects with over 50,000 devices from more than 1000 brands thanks to its 7 integrated wireless protocols.
1800+ Integrations
Home Assistant has the potential for over 1800 integrations (Brands). These are often dependant on additional hardware and, in many cases, some coding skill.
Homey App Store
The Homey App Store is an open platform with apps from brands, manufacturers, and the Homey community. It works like any other app store: search, install and connect all kinds of devices & services.
Search by brand, or integration type. Integrations can range from networking & smart devices to transport & weather. Depending on the integration, scripting know-how may be required.
7 Wireless Protocols
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Connects the smart home hub with the Internet and other devices through a Wi-Fi router.
Zigbee
Zigbee
Zigbee is the low-energy variant of Wi-Fi, with a few extras for domotics. Learn More
Z-Wave
Z-Wave
Z-Wave is a protocol optimized for Smart Home devices at home. Learn More
Bluetooth LE
Bluetooth LE
Bluetooth is the all rounder and is mainly used for audio and sporadic communication.
433 MHz
433 MHz
Widespread frequency for cheaper devices like Lightwave RF
868 Mhz
868 Mhz
Widespread frequency for cheaper devices with more data, like weather stations.
Infrared
Infrared
TVs and older tuners usually work with infrared, and is the only frequency that does not go through walls.
Wireless Protocols
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Connects the smart home hub with the Internet and other devices through a Wi-Fi router.
Zigbee
Zigbee
Zigbee is the low-energy variant of Wi-Fi, with a few extras for domotics. Learn More
Z-Wave
Z-Wave
Z-Wave is a protocol optimized for Smart Home devices at home. Learn More
Bluetooth LE
Bluetooth LE
Bluetooth is the all rounder and is mainly used for audio and sporadic communication.
433 MHz
433 MHz
Widespread frequency for cheaper devices like Lightwave RF
868 Mhz
868 Mhz
Widespread frequency for cheaper devices with more data, like weather stations.
Infrared
Infrared
TVs and older tuners usually work with infrared, and is the only frequency that does not go through walls.
Control
Arguably the most frequently used feature of any smart home hub is device control. This is where you go to adjust anything — from the brightness of your lights to the position of your blinds
Colorful and simple
Each device type has its own unique design — optimized for the specific functions of the device. This way you can — for example — switch your lights on and off immediately, while the dimming functions and color picker are always just one tap away.
In the settings of your device you can easily change specific settings, such as the sensitivity of a motion sensor.
Configurable and Customizable
Every home is different. That's why Home Assistant is built around 'Lovelace', a dashboard interface. With these dashboards, you can select the things you want to see.
Automation
Automation is where the real magic happens. This is where your home turns on the lights for you, sets the temperature, and even secures it when you’re away. All that — and so much more.
Flows
Flow cards are the building blocks of your automations. With every new device, new Flow cards become available. All it takes to connect your devices is finding the right cards for your use case. You can even add Flow cards from apps like Twitter or Weather — giving you more flexibility when it comes to automating your home.
Automations & Scenes
Create automations by using Triggers, Conditions, and Actions. Multiple Triggers can be selected to activate an automation, Conditions, if added, must be met, and Actions are then carried out as you specify. These elements do require some programming logic to set up, which might be challenging when you're not too seasoned at this. Scenes are simplified automations, letting you trigger a series of actions. You can add automations & scenes as Widgets for quick access.
Logic & Variables
With Homey Pro, you can customize your Flow cards using tags, logic, and variables. The ability to do this, adds a lot of freedom for automating your home — enabling you to get more creative with your Flows.
Blueprints
Automations can be enhanced by importing Blueprints. For this, some coding skills may be required. Blueprints are created & shared by the community, they are designed to alter the configuration options for an automation.
Monitoring
Your devices gather a lot of valuable information. This data can be used to improve your home’s health conditions, lower energy costs, and increase durability.
Homey Energy
Homey Energy offers real-time insight into your home’s energy consumption. It shows the current energy usage per zone and helps you uncover all the power guzzlers. Based on this information, you can even create new Flows to reduce the power consumption.
Energy
Home Assistant's Energy Dashboard is designed for users to get insight into their energy usage. At a glance you can see how you’re energy consumption is today, with the option to also break down per hour to see what happened when. With some configuration, users can add the price of energy, forecast solar panel production, and see the sources of their home's electricity.
Homey Insights
Homey Insights gives you the power to make data-driven decisions for your smart home. Here you can find all relevant data that your devices collect for you.
Device History
Home Assistant saves an Entity's history locally, and this can be represented in a graphical format. The representation and interaction with this data is limited.
Family
Share your home with others that also want to enjoy the benefits of a smart home.
User & Roles
With Family Sharing, Homey Pro users can invite family members to Homey and manage what they can do. A special guest account is available for friends, household helpers, and temporary guests. Depending on the role, family members may or may not have certain permissions.
Multiple Users
Home Assistant lets you invite new members to your home. Invites are not sent to users directly, instead as the Owner you create the account, and share the account details with new users. Guests are invited as Administrators or Users. Administrators can make substantial changes to the home, including managing devices, automations, scenes, and your dashboard. While Users can only interact with your Smart Home.
Privacy & Security
Your home is probably your most private place on earth. Your smart home system should respect that.
Privacy is built in. Secure by design.
Homey Pro is designed with privacy and security in mind. That is why all connections are secured and encrypted. Homey can only access your data when you explicitly allow it to. You decide who gets access to your data and who doesn’t.
Depends on your network settings.
Home Assistant states that they do not ask for, share, or store any personal data that they do not expressly require. As Home Assistant is often installed on a local device like a Raspberry Pi in your home, the security and privacy of that device is directly linked to that of your network. If you are tweaking your home network settings to allow for remote access, this can impact the privacy and security of the system.
Voice Assistant
It’s hard to imagine a smart home without any voice assistant. We think they’re here to stay, so we might as well embrace them.
Amazon Alexa
Use simple voice commands to control devices and start Flows. Even triggering Flows with custom voice commands is possible. This makes it possible to activate your Security Flow just by saying: 'Hey Alexa, good night'.
Amazon Alexa
Amazon Alexa integration is only available via the Home Assistant Cloud subscription costing 5$ per month. (Manual integrations are possible if you have advanced coding knowledge & skill.)
Google Home
Use simple voice commands to control devices and start Flows. You can also make custom phrases to trigger a Flow. E.g. Activate your security Flow by saying: 'Hey Google, good night'.
Google Home
Google Home integration is only available via the Home Assistant Cloud subscription costing 5$ per month. (Manual integrations are possible if you have advanced coding knowledge & skill.)
Siri Shortcuts
Thanks to Siri Shortcuts, you can use Siri voice commands to start your favorite Flows. In addition, you can use iOS-specific triggers in combination with Flow cards to enhance your Flows.
Siri Shortcuts
With iOS 13 or later and the Home Assistant Companion App, you can create Siri Shortcuts to carry out Home Assistant tasks with a tap or voice commands.
Scripting
For those who are interested in it, scripting brings ultimate power and freedom. Yes, power users… we’re talking to you.
HomeyScript
When you want to do even more with your smart home that isn’t possible with the Flow editor, HomeyScript offers unbounded possibilities. Write your script in JavaScript and have direct access to Homey’s Web API.
Scripts
Scripting is possible, even to the very core of Home Assistant. Many people choose this application for this reason. The project is open source and hosted on GitHub, where a large community base is engaged on building, changing, & designing Home Assistant. If you know how to, you can create a script for anything you set your mind to.
Community
Awesome communities help to create a better smart home every day.
Open Platform
Homey Pro has a completely open platform. Integrations with devices and services are all 'Homey Apps', just like on your smartphone.
The Homey App Store is loaded with apps from Homey itself, partner brands, or developers from the Homey community. As a result, new options are being added to Homey at an inimitable pace. Apps are approved and then published in the Homey App Store. This way everyone can enjoy it, even if you can't program yourself.
Open Source
Home Assistant is built on the Open Source principle. It is powered by a global community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Anyone can design, create, script, and add changes to their often unique versions of Home Assistant. Integrations, Dashboard cards, and Blueprints all come from the community.
The above makes Home Assistant very open. It should be noted, that if you're not sure what you're doing, Home Assistant can be a challenge to setup and operate.
Conclusion
Choosing between Homey Pro or Home Assistant really depends on who you are, how experienced you are with programming, and what you're looking for in a smart home platform. Both systems offer fairly similar capabilities if you have all the additional hardware and the cloud subscription for Home Assistant. The way in which they work however, differs substantially.
Home Assistant is made for the tweakers. Designed for those who are not scared to fiddle with hardware, dive into software, and program their own smart home. Built for those that enjoy putting in their time and applying their programming skills to create their own smart home. In general, Home Assistant requires a certain degree of hands-on maintenance and upkeep as well, with no dedicated customer care channels for its users. You will also need to alter your network configuration or enter into a monthly subscription if you want to use voice assistants or remote access.
Homey Pro on the other hand is more intuitive and easy-to-use right out of the box. Cloud services, voice integrations, and a dedicated customer care helpdesk is all built into the price, together with the 7 wireless radios and central hardware. Finding your way on Homey is easy and doesn't require programming skills. It's less maintenance, and easier to understand for everyone in the home. Looking to take it a step further than 'normal'? HomeyScript and the ability to create your own Homey Apps provide you with lots of freedom. You might not be able to change the whole operating system to its core, but that does mean that Homey is able to offer a simpler, more refined and stable experience.
Try Homey now.
We're convinced that you'll love Homey Pro. That's why we offer a 30-days money-back guarantee, so you can try it out without any risk.
