Wi-Fi a, range/coverage, interference and island mode

elfrigo

First of all grats on this great product. I'm very curious about the current "state" of development.

Just to double check:
- I read on the homepage that homey features different radio technologies: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, ZigBee, Z-Wave, 433.92 MHz, nrf24l01+ and Infrared.
- Emile posted on the forum it will also support IFTTT. Which is cool.

1. Any chance the wifi will be upgraded to to Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n?
2. Bluetooth 4.0 is mainly a specification. How will it be implemented ... the focus on low energy or range?
3. Since (range)coverage is quite essential to use the device throughout the whole house. What is the "range"/"coverage" of Homey for the various radio's?
4. A big issue might be the co-existence of Zigbee, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which use the same band. Most transceivers have some co-existence mechanism to minimize interference. How are you dealing with interference?
I understand connection to your servers is needed for some stuff.
5. What will NOT work anymore if Homey is used in "island" mode (e.g. no internet)?
6. Any chance to upgrade Homey with an 4G GSM module as fallback device?

Emile

Hi and thanks!

1. How is 802.11a an upgrade? :-) Maybe you mean ac? We don't support ac.
2. That depends on the accessories
3. That really can't be said, as it's completely dependent on your house's set-up. As for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth: quite standard range. ZigBee and Z-Wave use meshing. Infrared: visual range. All others vary, but will be repeated through Homeys if you have multiple.
4. Our module we buy already combines Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and tests show that's not a problem. ZigBee and Wi-Fi co-existence is still tricky but works well, as ZigBee uses much smaller frequency ranges. It has actually been optimized to co-exist with Wi-Fi and BT.
5. Speech recognition, and all apps that connect to the internet, obviously
6. There's an USB OTG port, which in the future may be used to extend Homey with Ethernet. A compatible 4G dongle is on the roadmap as well.

Athomey

3. It's also dependent on how it's set-up in Homey itself, and the gain of antenna's, the output efficiency, etc.. But more curious: You are supporting multiple homey's in a group out of the box, on release? How will it work? Will they know the same scene's/devices and stay in sync automatically?

Emile

A Homey belongs to an account (which is owned by one person). It's a many to many relationship.

One Homey takes care of user-things like flows, but they all work together to recognize speech (if they are owned by the same user), repeat wireless signals etc.

RobinVanKekem

1. AC WiFi will be more of interest on high data speed situations.
From what I get of Homey it doesn't need these data speeds.
Plus AC is 5GHz which isn't on all WiFi AccesPoints and all services like phones and laptops.

nickjdunn

Hey I had a question relating to haging multiple homeys. I know you said you can have multiple connected to one a ccount to control devices but is it possible to say have one homey per room and assign that homey to that "zone" so if I step into my bedroom and say "hey homey, tuturn the lights on" it will know I'm in the bedroom and only turn the lights in the zone bedroom on and likewise with the others in the other rooms. If this isn't a current feature i feel it would be something awesome to consider adding in the future.

Emile

Exactly, that's what we're doing right now. You put your Homey in a zone (room). When you then don't mention a room with your voice command, Homey assumes you're targeting the same room he's in.

nickjdunn

Omg! Just take my money now...ALL OF IT! Lol homey sounds amazing! Can't wait to get mine!

Emile