Potential purchaser - few questions

vaderag

Hi All,

I'm on the cusp of jumping into full home automation with Homey but I have a few questions which I don't seem to find the answer to...

1) LightwaveRF - I want to use Lightwave RF dimmers on my lights - it appears Homey supports this, but does it support all native functionality that you would get with a lightwaveRF only setup?

2) Hue - do I need the hue hub still? I see mixed opinions on the forums but all threads seem old

3) IR - I currently have a Harmony Hub to do my IR - this bounces off the walls so does not need to be facing my setup (in fact faces the opposite direction) - does the Homey also bounce off the walls? How does programming the IR work? Do you need to program each code individually or is there some way to import from device databases similar to Logitech?

4) Alexa - I use Alexa extensively, last I saw Homey required the longform command (Alexa ask Homey to xyz) - is this likely to change? Also, can you disable Homey's own voice interactions in preference of Alexa?

5) Seems Homey has been out a while - are there plans for a V2 or just continued support of the current one?

6) I plan to build a home security setup - does Homey have any backups if a) the wifi drops or b) the power is pulled?

Thank you in advance for helping me answer some concerns!
Cheers,
Andy

bvdbos

1) Can't answer that but I think you might have to explain "all native functionality"
2) For now you still need a hub, there's no direct zigbee app (yet)
3) Homey also "bounces" but people claim better results with Harmony. For me Homey IR works. You can learn signals to Homey or if you want clearer signals, you can use special apps or you could code an app yourself if you know the codes.
4) you can always turn off the microphone of Homey. We don't know if Alexa is going to change so you can use shorter sentences.
5) V1 isn't finished yet, there's still ongoing (and fast) development on Homey v1. So while people are thinking about and experimenting with a V2, you can rely on V1 to be supported for a long time still.
6) If wifi drops, Homey will keep working (except for network-related stuff of course but zwave, zigbee, 433 etc will still work). If power is pulled Homey stops working unless you have a powerbank or UPS installed...

lubbertkramer

vaderag said:

Hi All,

I'm on the cusp of jumping into full home automation with Homey but I have a few questions which I don't seem to find the answer to...

1) LightwaveRF - I want to use Lightwave RF dimmers on my lights - it appears Homey supports this, but does it support all native functionality that you would get with a lightwaveRF only setup?

2) Hue - do I need the hue hub still? I see mixed opinions on the forums but all threads seem old

3) IR - I currently have a Harmony Hub to do my IR - this bounces off the walls so does not need to be facing my setup (in fact faces the opposite direction) - does the Homey also bounce off the walls? How does programming the IR work? Do you need to program each code individually or is there some way to import from device databases similar to Logitech?

4) Alexa - I use Alexa extensively, last I saw Homey required the longform command (Alexa ask Homey to xyz) - is this likely to change? Also, can you disable Homey's own voice interactions in preference of Alexa?

5) Seems Homey has been out a while - are there plans for a V2 or just continued support of the current one?

6) I plan to build a home security setup - does Homey have any backups if a) the wifi drops or b) the power is pulled?

Thank you in advance for helping me answer some concerns!
Cheers,
Andy

1. Don't know

2. Still need the hub, when Athom or a developer makes an app that connects directly with the activated zigbee chip (just like the ikea app) then you can remove the bridge. But Athom said there are some problems that you need to reset the lights/devices by the bridge before you can connect them to Homey

3. IR, mixed feelings but since 1.5 there are dedicated apps from Athom in the store that should work better, for the rest see answer above

4. Offcourse can you only use the speech through Alexa (Alexa sends speech to text to Homey) but the problem is when you live in the Netherlands that Homey supports Dutch but Alexa isn't so they only have the English language in commen so Homey needs to be set to English. If the command is going to change i don't think on the short term, it's also something Amazon needs to allow

5. Offcourse are there plans for a V2 but not known to us at the moment, don't count on it soon. They announced V2 of the software to become available stable by the end of 2017, see the updates on the forum from Athom

6. When you pull the plug (no power) Homey stops working offcourse unless you use a UPS or something like that. If you have a z-wave mesh that keeps working if it's not powered by your home power. When wifi drops all flows keep working only the one that use the internet (but be aware, most thermostat etc use a internet API to connect too) 

vaderag

Thanks for the replies.
1. I'll await someone else who might have the details on Lightwave - mostly I want to be able to set scenes, light % and on/off

2. I see apps for the Ikea bulbs and Osram which both seem to not need a hub - my understanding is they work with Hue so could one of those not be used for the Hue bulbs?

3. Bit disappointing that you need to learn each command one by one... I guess there aren't hundreds I need... My hope was to be able to get rid of the Harmony hub to support this purchase, but maybe that is not possible

4. English no problem, but Amazon do already support - my Hue and Sonoff already allow me to say "Alexa, turn on the radiator" (for example), so no reason that Homey shouldnt

6. Makes sense... guess i might need to look into a UPS if i go this route

KoenMartens

Also about nr 4: If you would ask Homey something via Alexa (i.e. "Alexa, ask Homey to turn on the TV"), which triggers a flow in Homey and would say something (i.e. "Yes sir"), then the Echo Dot will have the speech active, not the Homey (i.e. Alexa will say "Yes sir", not Homey).

Shorter commands are currently possible, but this requires quite some tinkering on your end - it involves a tertiary device (such as a RaspPi), and imitating Hue lights. Read it on https://forum.athom.com/discussion/3031/advanced-link-ha-bridge-to-homey
I currently have this set on to do things as "Alexa, turn on/off the lights", and "Alexa, set the receiver volume to 20%". These commands are processed by Alexa, send to my Raspberry Pi, then send to my Homey, and Homey will do whatever I tell it to do.

lubbertkramer

KoenMartens said:

Also about nr 4: If you would ask Homey something via Alexa (i.e. "Alexa, ask Homey to turn on the TV"), which triggers a flow in Homey and would say something (i.e. "Yes sir"), then the Echo Dot will have the speech active, not the Homey (i.e. Alexa will say "Yes sir", not Homey).

Shorter commands are currently possible, but this requires quite some tinkering on your end - it involves a tertiary device (such as a RaspPi), and imitating Hue lights. Read it on https://forum.athom.com/discussion/3031/advanced-link-ha-bridge-to-homey
I currently have this set on to do things as "Alexa, turn on/off the lights", and "Alexa, set the receiver volume to 20%". These commands are processed by Alexa, send to my Raspberry Pi, then send to my Homey, and Homey will do whatever I tell it to do.

If you ask Homey a question through Alexa then Homey will respond back by Alexa. Changing the sentence will not work i guess because this is how the skill is build and how it's approved by Amazon. It can be that Amazon doesn't want other homeautomation products that work the same use shorter sentence. If you want you can always build your own skill ofcourse or hack it indeed with Homebridge or a Pi

Here a video from me a while ago where the skill just was released in developer preview (it starts with selecting active Homey because i have multiple Homey's under my account)