Quick Answer
Home Assistant wins on device support, flexibility, and total cost. Homey Pro wins on ease of use and out-of-the-box polish. If you're comfortable editing config files and want the best possible integration depth, choose HA. If you want a hub you can hand to a family member to manage, Homey Pro is worth the premium.
Table of Contents
What You Need
Quick Comparison Table
| Feature | Home Assistant | Homey Pro (2023) |
|---|---|---|
| Local processing | ✅ Full | ✅ Full |
| Open source | ✅ Yes (Apache 2.0) | ❌ No |
| Integrations | 3,000+ | ~1,000 |
| Zigbee support | ✅ ZHA + Zigbee2MQTT | ✅ Built-in |
| Z-Wave support | ✅ Z-Wave JS | ✅ Built-in |
| Matter/Thread | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Hardware cost | ~$35–$150 (Pi/mini PC) | €399 fixed |
| Subscription needed | ❌ No (Nabu Casa optional) | ❌ No |
| UI difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Automation power | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ⭐⭐⭐ |
Home Assistant: Strengths
Home Assistant has been in active development since 2013 and now has one of the largest open source communities of any home automation project. Here's why experienced users choose it:
- 3,000+ integrations: From obscure Chinese smart plugs to enterprise HVAC systems, if a device exists, someone has written an HA integration for it.
- Zigbee2MQTT and ZHA: Two mature Zigbee stacks with device support that vastly exceeds any proprietary hub.
- Powerful automations: Jinja2 templating, conditions, triggers, scripts, and blueprints give you automation power that Homey can't match.
- Add-on ecosystem: ESPHome, Node-RED, Mosquitto, MariaDB, and dozens more run inside HA as supervised add-ons.
- Energy monitoring: Built-in Energy Dashboard tracks solar, grid, and per-device consumption.
- Cost: A Raspberry Pi 4 + Zigbee dongle runs the whole stack for under $80.
Home Assistant: Weaknesses
- Setup complexity: The initial setup and learning curve is real. Expect to spend a full weekend getting comfortable with it.
- Occasional breaking changes: Monthly releases sometimes require manual updates to YAML configs or integrations.
- UI inconsistency: The interface mixes old and new design patterns — not a polished consumer product.
- DIY hardware: You assemble your own hardware stack. That's a plus for flexibility but a minus for out-of-box experience.
Homey Pro: Strengths
Homey Pro (the 2023 model, not the older Homey) is a serious locally-controlled hub with a genuinely polished experience:
- All radios in one device: Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, infrared, and 433MHz — no separate dongles or USB hubs.
- App-first design: The Homey mobile app is excellent. Setting up a new device takes minutes, not hours.
- Family-friendly: Non-technical family members can manage devices without ever opening a config file.
- Flows UI: Visual flow editor for automations — no YAML required.
Homey Pro: Weaknesses
- Price: €399 is a significant upfront cost compared to a $50 Raspberry Pi.
- Closed source: You're dependent on Athom's development priorities. If they drop a feature or go under, you're stuck.
- Fewer integrations: ~1,000 apps vs HA's 3,000+. Some devices simply aren't supported.
- Limited automation power: Complex conditional logic, templates, and multi-step scripts are harder to achieve than in HA.
Use-Case Guide
Choose Home Assistant if:
You have a mixed-brand setup with unusual devices, you enjoy tinkering, you want YAML automation power, you're budget-conscious, or you want to self-host add-ons like ESPHome and Node-RED.
Choose Homey Pro if:
You want a polished, app-driven experience, you don't want to edit config files, you have non-technical family members who'll manage the system, or you want all radios in one device without USB dongles.
Migration Notes
Moving from Homey to Home Assistant is feasible but requires manual work — there's no automated migration tool. Here's the typical process:
- Export your Homey device list and note all device types and brands.
- Set up HA and identify the correct integration for each device (native integration, Zigbee2MQTT, HACS, etc.).
- Re-pair Zigbee and Z-Wave devices one by one (they need to re-join the new coordinator).
- Recreate automations in HA's YAML or automation editor.
Moving from HA to Homey is less common but follows a similar process. Expect to spend a full day on migration for a large setup.
Troubleshooting
- Entities don’t appear in Home Assistant: Confirm the integration is loaded correctly and double-check that the device is supported by the platform you chose.
- Commands feel delayed: This is usually caused by cloud polling, weak Wi-Fi, or a slow Zigbee mesh rather than Home Assistant itself.
- Things work in the vendor app but not in HA: Re-check credentials, local API permissions, and whether the device is using the correct network path.
- Automations misfire: Open the automation trace in Home Assistant and verify the exact entity IDs and state changes being used.
FAQ
Can Homey Pro and Home Assistant work together?
Yes — some users run Homey Pro as a device hub and integrate it into Home Assistant via the Homey integration. It's niche, but it works if you want Homey's radio stack with HA's automation engine.
Which is better for Zigbee devices?
Home Assistant with Zigbee2MQTT supports more Zigbee devices and exposes more device attributes. Homey Pro's Zigbee support is solid for common devices but may miss edge cases or device-specific features.
Is Homey Pro fully offline?
Yes, Homey Pro (2023) processes all automations locally. A cloud account is needed for initial setup and remote access via the app, but local automations continue without internet.
Can I add Zigbee devices to Home Assistant without a separate dongle?
Only if you're using the Home Assistant Yellow (which has built-in Zigbee) or a similar combo device. Otherwise, a USB dongle like the Sonoff ZBDongle-P is required.
automation:
- alias: "Hallway light on motion"
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.hallway_motion
to: "on"
action:
- service: light.turn_on
target:
entity_id: light.hallway
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