November Development Blog — Homey Pro (Early 2023)
Written by Emile Nijssen
Welcome to the Development Blog series of Homey Pro (Early 2023). In these series we'll share updates around the next generation Homey Pro until all pre-orders have been fulfilled.
Ask Me Anything
In case you've missed it, we live-streamed an AMA which answered many of your questions. You can watch it back below.
FCC, IC & CE Certification
Before a product can be made available on the market, it has to be certified. For countries in the European Union (and other countries that piggyback on the same standards), the CE marking is required. For the USA, an FCC certification is required, and for Canada it's called IC.
Homey Pro is currently being certified for all of those. Because Homey Pro has so many onboard antennas, this takes a few weeks. Homey Pro's antennas are very similar to Homey Bridge, which has been certified without any issues before. While never certain, we don't expect any delays here.
Manufacturing
The factory is finalising their preparations for mass-production. Because of the large volume (thank you!), this takes some time, but when it's all set-up properly, the Homey Pros fly through the factory, off the conveyor belts right into their boxes.
Many one-time preparations have to be made, such as test-probes to flash and test all the chips and antennas. We've also been in close contact with Balena, and they've shipped a few of their Etcher Pros to our factory, so we can easily flash the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4s in bulk.
Software
Our software engineers are currently finalising the software that will be flashed in the factory, and thus ship with Homey Pro. Let's highlight a few things!
Setup
Homey Pro (Early 2023) can be set-up using Bluetooth to connect to Wi-Fi, or only use Ethernet. It's much better than switching Wi-Fi networks, as was needed in the previous generation Homey Pro.
Migration
The most heard feedback we have received, is the wish for a migration from the previous generation Homey Pro family (2016 — 2019) to the new generation Homey Pro (Early 2023). We've heard you and have adjusted our priorities to work on that.
Most of it is quite straightforward, but there are a few tough challenges. For one, we've upgraded the Zigbee chip from Texas Instruments (CC2530) to Silicon Labs (EFR32MG21). Their settings are of course not compatible at all, because they're made by different companies. We are working on a solution to also migrate your Zigbee devices. Worst case, that's not possible, and you have to 'Try to Repair' all your devices. Of course your Flows etc. will keep the reference to that same device.
Developers
I'd like to give a warm shoutout to our Community Developers who have been working together, to update any apps that are still on the legacy Apps SDK v2, to the newest Apps SDK v3. Thank you so much for your combined efforts!
We've also communicated before that the userdata folder would be removed. But due to your feedback, we've reverted that decision. Thank you!
Timeline
Of course, you're most interested when you'll receive your Homey Pro! We're still hoping to ship the first Homey Pros in December. 🤞🏻 If you pre-order now, the expected shipping date is January 2023.
Until the next update!
— Emile, Founder & Creative Director
