{{Short description, Smart home hub Homey is a

smart home hub A smart home hub, sometimes also referred to as a "smart hub", "gateway'", "bridge", "controller" or "coordinator", is a control center/centre for a smart home, and enables the components of a smart home to communicate and respond to each other via ...

manufactured by the Dutch company Athom B.V.. Homey has a mobile & web app interface with an

open API An open API (often referred to as a public API) is a publicly available application programming interface that provides developers with programmatic access to a proprietary software application or web service. APIs are sets of requirements that g ...

that allows third-party developers to add support for their products in Homey. Like other smart home hubs, the purpose of Homey is to act as a central point of configuration, control and monitoring of components in a smart home. An automatic control flow is nicknamed a "Flow" in the Homey app.

History

Homey was originally started as a

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

project in May 2014 by Emile Nijssen and Stefan Witkamp, and the company Athom B.V. was founded to take care of the development. In 2015, private investors invested 1 million

euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

in the company.

Models

Homey (2016)

In 2016, the first version of the Homey was released after having started as a Kickstarter project in 2014. The first generation of Homey had a built-in

microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and public ...

and software for

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the m ...

, and as such could be regarded as both a

smart speaker A smart speaker is a type of loudspeaker and voice command device with an integrated virtual assistant that offers interactive actions and hands-free activation with the help of one "hot word" (or several "hot words"). Some smart speakers can al ...

and a smart home hub. It had support for connecting over

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

ZigBee Zigbee is an IEEE 802.15.4-based specification for a suite of high-level communication protocols used to create personal area networks with small, low-power digital radios, such as for home automation, medical device data collection, and othe ...

Z-Wave Z-Wave is a wireless communications protocol used primarily for residential and commercial building automation. It is a mesh network using low-energy radio waves to communicate from device to device, allowing for wireless control of smart home d ...

, 433 MHz, 868 MHz and infrared light.

Homey (2019)

In 2019, the second generation of Homey was released. Notable hardware changes includes removal of the

near-field communication Near-field communication (NFC) is a set of communication protocols that enables communication between two electronic devices over a distance of 4 cm (1 in) or less. NFC offers a low-speed connection through a simple setup that can be u ...

module due to little use, as well as removal of the microphone because Homey had deemed it to not be good enough to function as planned.Athom Homey (2019) - Test - Tek.no
/ref> The software was also updated to version 2.0, and older equipment could also be upgraded to this version. Some of the changes in the software was a more complete

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

, while support for the

desktop application A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

was removed. Support was added for lighting control using

KNX KNX is an open standard (see EN 50090, ISO/IEC 14543) for commercial and domestic building automation. KNX devices can manage lighting, blinds and shutters, HVAC, security systems, energy management, audio video, white goods, displays, remote ...

.Review: Athom Homey 2.0 - Smart home hub for all your smart devices
/ref> The Homey second generation had a hardware with 512 MB

random-access memory Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working Data (computing), data and machine code. A Random access, random-access memory device allows data items to b ...

and a single core

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...

Homey Pro (2019)

Homey Pro was also launched in 2019 at the same time as the second generation of the Homey base model, but the Pro edition had a twice as powerful hardware with 1 GB of random-access memory and a dual core processor.

Homey Bridge (2022)

Homey Bridge was announced during a livestream on September 7, 2021, as an optional wireless antenna for the then-introduced cloud-service. Supported technologies are

Bluetooth Low Energy Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE, colloquially BLE, formerly marketed as Bluetooth Smart) is a wireless personal area network technology designed and marketed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) aimed at novel applications in ...

Zigbee Zigbee is an IEEE 802.15.4-based specification for a suite of high-level communication protocols used to create personal area networks with small, low-power digital radios, such as for home automation, medical device data collection, and othe ...

, 433 Mhz and

Infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

Homey Pro (2023)

A new generation Homey Pro was announced during a livestream on October 12, 2022, and started shipping in Q1 2023. Notable changes are a new flat design, similar to Homey Bridge, based on a

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi () is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned towards the promotion of teaching basic ...

Compute Module 4, shipping with a quad core processor, 2 GB of random-access memory and 8 GB flash storage. Supported technologies are

, 433 Mhz,

Matter In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic partic ...

and Thread.

Supported devices

The Homey software has partial support for integration with selected components from other smart home systems, such as

Philips Hue Philips Hue is a line of color-changing LED lamps and white bulbs which can be controlled wirelessly. The Philips Hue line of bulbs was the first smart bulb of its kind on the market. The lamps are currently created and manufactured by Signify ...

IKEA IKEA (; ) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands that designs and sells , kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been t ...

Google Nest Google Nest is a line of home automation, smart home products including smart speakers, smart displays, streaming devices, Smart thermostat, thermostats, smoke detectors, Router (computing), routers and security alarms, security systems includ ...

Chromecast Chromecast is a line of digital media players developed by Google. The devices, designed as small dongles, can play Internet-streamed audio-visual content on a high-definition television or home audio system. The user can control playback with ...

Logitech Harmony Logitech Harmony is a line of remote controls and home automation products produced by Logitech. The line includes universal remote products designed for controlling the components of home theater systems (including televisions, set-top boxes, D ...

, Spotify Connect and

Sonos SONOS, short for "silicon–oxide–nitride–oxide–silicon", more precisely, " polycrystalline silicon"—"silicon dioxide"—"silicon nitride"—"silicon dioxide"—"silicon", is a cross sectional structure of MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconduc ...

. Homey claims to support over 50 000 different devices from over 1000 brands.Athom Homey Pro Smart Home Hub launched plus Homey v2.0 app - A hub for Z-Wave, WiFi, BLE & more
/ref>

References

Smart home hubs