Homey Pro vs. Futurehome

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.

What You Should Consider

• Different Approaches
• Ease of Use
• Device Control
• Device Compatibility
• Automation
• Stability & Reliability
• Security & Privacy
• Community & Support
• Pricing Model
• Should I Choose Homey Pro or Futurehome?

Different Approaches

Homey Pro and Futurehome use different approaches to home automation. Homey Pro prioritizes local control and user privacy; your smart home operates 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 professional installation for additional features, such as Smart Charge.

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 offers a visual automation builder that’s both powerful and approachable, enabling you to create sophisticated automations without requiring technical expertise.

Futurehome Experience

Futurehome offers a streamlined setup experience, complete with guided installation and professional support options available if needed. The interface itself is designed for simplicity, keeping essential controls front and center and hiding more complex details from everyday users. However, this focus on simplicity does mean that customization options are more limited compared to platforms like Homey Pro, which offer deeper configuration possibilities.

The platform emphasizes remote monitoring and control through cloud services, making it easy to manage your home from anywhere. This connectivity is crucial for remote access, notifications, and updates. However, it’s essential to understand that while core smart home functionality relies on local processing within the Smarthub (meaning your automations often work even without an internet connection), some features, particularly those for remote interaction, do require 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

Homey Dashboards provide an elegant overview of all connected devices, complete with real-time status updates. Each device type features highly optimized controls: lights offer intuitive dimming sliders and color pickers, thermostats display comprehensive temperature controls, and security devices present clear status indicators. Homey Pro emphasizes flexibility and depth in its control options, allowing users to fine-tune device behavior extensively.

Device commands respond instantly because all processing and communication run locally on your Homey Pro. This robust local control minimizes perceptible delays, as there’s no waiting for cloud servers. A key benefit is that your smart home continues working seamlessly even during internet outages, ensuring reliable functionality at all times.

Futurehome Device Control

Futurehome offers a simplified control interface that strongly prioritizes ease of use over extensive customization. The app provides precise, basic controls tailored for common device types, including on/off switches, dimmers, temperature adjustments, and mode selections.

The design emphasizes simplicity, aiming to make device interaction predictable and straightforward. This approach leads to less flexibility and fewer advanced configuration options compared to platforms like Homey Pro.

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, offering built-in support for multiple wireless protocols, including Matter, Thread, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 433 MHz, 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.

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 and devices, which means better reliability, but limited options for newer or niche products.

New device support depends on Futurehome’s development priorities and partnerships, which may result in waiting for official support rather than relying on 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 visually displays the complete automation logic. 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, such as “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 an added layer of stability, you can connect your Homey Pro via an Ethernet Adapter and use a wired connection.

The Homey ecosystem reduces the risk of conflicts or instability, as all apps undergo 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 hybrid architecture means its overall stability and functionality are influenced by both local and cloud components. While the Smarthub processes core automations locally, the platform’s remote control, notifications, and advanced features, such as Smart Charging (for EV optimization) or StrømKontroll, do rely on cloud services.

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 devices to do so.

All connections utilize encryption, and the system features built-in security measures. 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 manages security through a combination of local processing on the Smarthub and secure cloud infrastructure. A key aspect of their design is to process and store much of your home’s data locally on the Smarthub, enhancing privacy and reducing reliance on external servers for core functionality.

While Futurehome implements robust security measures for its cloud services, the hybrid model involves transmitting specific data (for example, for remote access, push notifications, or integrations with external services like energy partners) to its cloud for processing and temporary storage.

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 European 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

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 ensures your smart home remains functional, regardless of your subscription status or changes in company ownership.

Futurehome Pricing

Futurehome typically involves hardware costs, as well as additional integration and installation fees. Depending on your needs, Futurehome includes:

• Access to cloud services and remote control
• Regular feature updates and new integrations
• Customer support and maintenance
• Dependency on continued service availability
• Optional Futurehome Charge package
• Optional Futurehome StrømKontroll package (advanced energy management)

While the initial hardware cost might seem lower, the overall investment increases as you add specific features like Smart Charging or StrømKontroll, 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
• Want professional installation and support
• Prioritize simplicity over customization
• Are comfortable with cloud-based processing
• Have straightforward automation needs
• Don’t mind additional feature costs

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? Get started for free with Homey Cloud, or go full-on with Homey Pro.