My short story about why I left my Raspberry Pi 3B + RFXCom for Homey

Sneeuwvos

Hi guys,

I am pretty new to the forum (registered today) and I just wanted to say I love my Homey more than my Raspberry nowadays.

I used to code a lot for fun on Domoticz on the Raspberry 2B+. I was even more excited when Raspberry Pi 3B+ came out, the good news: it was faster! The bad news: the hardware architecture changed in a way not every developer liked it. Such as the head of OpenMediaVault. They decided to skip the 3B+ and wait for a better hardware release from Raspberry (which happens once in a year)   I was running Domoticz (via Openmediavault) on there as well and decided to pull the plug on Openmediavault+Domoticz.

I didn't feel like doing too much Linux-stuff and 'complicated' LUA coding anymore. I saw an interview about Homey on the HardwareInfo Youtube channel and decided to buy Homey. 

I plugged Homey in and connect it to WiFi. Installed the latest firmware. As excited as I was I started configuring, installing apps, it crashed like 5 times unfortunately while making Flow's and clicking quickly through menu's. It made me sad. But the day after it went VERY stable . Probably in the background it does some apt-get update? o.O I dunno.

First I was skeptical about the interface, but after a couple of days I can already tell Homey is (for me) better than Domoticz. The price is pretty high, but it compensates on the many sensors it has built in already (RFXCom for 433Mhz costs 109 Eur, let alone buying other sensors). Also I really like the apps people have already built.

Soon I will to post a few things I have built in Homey that I have not yet seen on this forum

Tiyrell

Hi There!

Welcome to Homey!
Nice reading these backstories and made me think I should perhaps write one myself as well.
I really like the UI as well and is pretty flexible. 

What kind of devices are you using? What flows are you using in your Homey?

Enjoy Homey!

edit: Oops I just read that you will post that later hahaha, I blame it on the heat

Sneeuwvos

Tiyrell said:

Hi There!

Welcome to Homey!
Nice reading these backstories and made me think I should perhaps write one myself as well.
I really like the UI as well and is pretty flexible. 

What kind of devices are you using? What flows are you using in your Homey?

Enjoy Homey!

edit: Oops I just read that you will post that later hahaha, I blame it on the heat

Thank you and no problem!

I have developed 2 flows I haven't seen yet on the forum, please tell me if it already exists.

flow 1. Wake up light for MiLight (or any other light) with a 30 minutes fade in. I know Hue has this but I was missing it on other light brands.
flow 2. An "web.exe + urlToOpen" file that you can use for e.g. backup systems (such as SyncbackSE) to inform Homey if a backup was successful or has failed. E.g. this way you can light up Homey green if the backup was succesful.

jorden

Nice story! I bought a Homey because they came available shortly after I got the keys to my new appartment; otherwise I might have looked into a Raspberry-kind of solution as well. But I'm very happy with my Homey.

Flow 2 is something that you might accomplish with my "Webhook" app: https://apps.athom.com/app/webhook.manager (Almost 15 million Webhook calls already done by Homey owners!)

Sneeuwvos

jorden said:

Nice story! I bought a Homey because they came available shortly after I got the keys to my new appartment; otherwise I might have looked into a Raspberry-kind of solution as well. But I'm very happy with my Homey.

Flow 2 is something that you might accomplish with my "Webhook" app: https://apps.athom.com/app/webhook.manager (Almost 15 million Webhook calls already done by Homey owners!)

True, but I use backup software that can't run a HTTP or open a PHP file, so it needs to be done through an .exetuable. Basicly you can just do a "GET" on any URL you want. Such as from backup software running on your PC.  I'll post it in another topic very soon.