Homey Pro: every radio in one box, and what that is worth
The best legacy on-ramp in the market, with two limits worth knowing before you order.
The pitch, stated plainly#
Most hubs make you choose a protocol. Homey Pro does not. It is the answer to a specific situation: a house with a decade of accumulated hardware on incompatible radios, where the owner wants one app and one set of automations without throwing anything away.
The second half of that pitch is the Matter Bridge app, which turns Zigbee, Z-Wave, infrared, Bluetooth, 433 MHz and cloud-connected devices into Matter accessories that any Matter controller can adopt. That is a genuinely useful capability, and no other product packages it this neatly. It also means a Z-Wave lock can appear in Apple Home, which Apple has no radio to do on its own.
The lineup and the prices#
Prices rose on 1 June 2026, with the vendor citing memory and storage costs.
| Product | Price (US, Sept 2026) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Homey Pro 2026 | $449 | All radios onboard |
| Homey Pro mini | $249 | No Z-Wave, no Bluetooth, no infrared, no 433 MHz |
| Homey Bridge | $69 | Adds the radios the mini lacks |
| Ethernet adapter | $29 | Worth buying |
| Homey Self-Hosted Server | $4.99 a month or $149 for life | Software only, your hardware |
| Cloud backup | $10 a year | Optional |
The mini at $249 plus a $69 Bridge lands at $318 for a configuration that is still not equivalent to the Pro. If you need Z-Wave and infrared, buy the Pro and skip the arithmetic.
Radios on the Homey Pro 2026#
| Radio | Detail that matters |
|---|---|
| Wi-Fi | 2.4 and 5 GHz |
| Thread | Border router built in, with the limitation below |
| Zigbee | 3.0 |
| Z-Wave | 700 series, not 800, so no Z-Wave Long Range |
| Bluetooth | BLE 5.0 |
| Infrared | Bidirectional, which is rare in a hub |
| 433 MHz | Disabled in the US, Canada and South Korea for regulatory reasons |
Two of those deserve emphasis for a US buyer. The Z-Wave radio is 700 series, so you do not get Z-Wave Long Range with its star topology, 4,000 node ceiling and much longer reach. With roughly 80% of the Z-Wave certification pipeline targeting Long Range as of CES 2026, that is a forward-looking gap rather than a current one, but it is real. Hubitat and Home Assistant both ship 800 series radios.
And the 433 MHz radio, one of the headline reasons to buy this hub, does not operate in the United States. If you were buying Homey specifically for old 433 MHz sensors or blinds, that plan does not work here.
The Thread limitation#
The Homey Pro 2026 includes a Thread border router, but it forms its own Thread network rather than joining an existing one. Commissioning runs over Bluetooth, so a device has to be within BLE range of the hub when you pair it.
The practical consequences:
- If you already run a Thread network through Apple, Google, Amazon or SmartThings, Homey adds a second one instead of reinforcing the first. That is the Thread fragmentation problem, deliberately created.
- Two Thread networks in a house split your relay population. Each mesh is smaller and less resilient than one combined mesh would be.
- BLE-range commissioning means a Thread sensor at the far end of the house may need to be carried to the hub, paired, and carried back, and it will then need a mains-powered Thread relay to stay reachable.
Matter support and the bridge#
Homey Pro was certified for Matter 1.5 on 29 June 2026 with firmware 13.3.0, which puts it among the earlier adopters. Cameras, the headline feature of Matter 1.5, are explicitly not included and deferred to a later release. There is no Joint Fabric, which is consistent with every other consumer platform as of September 2026.
The Matter Bridge app is the differentiator. It exposes Homey's devices, whatever radio they arrived on, as Matter accessories to Apple Home, Google Home, Alexa, SmartThings and Home Assistant. That means:
- A Z-Wave sensor can trigger an Apple Home automation.
- An infrared-controlled air conditioner can appear as a thermostat to a voice assistant.
- A cloud-only device with a Homey app can be pulled into a Matter fabric.
The standard caveats about Matter bridges apply in full. A bridge maps a rich device onto a generic Matter device type, and everything that does not map is lost: vendor lighting effects, scene definitions, firmware updates from the controller, and often the granularity of multi-function devices. You are trading fidelity for reach, knowingly.
Device Updates, added on 27 August 2026, brought firmware updates for Matter, Zigbee and Z-Wave devices from inside Homey, pulling Matter firmware from the alliance Distributed Compliance Ledger. That is a meaningful maintenance feature that most hubs do not offer.
Local control, with an asterisk#
Homey markets itself as on-premise, and Flows genuinely do execute on the hub. State, rules and radio traffic stay in the house.
The asterisk is documented in the community: the mobile app periodically needs internet access to reauthorize. If that reauthorization comes due during an outage, you can lose app access to a hub that is otherwise working perfectly. That is why Homey scores 62.5 on our Local Control Index rather than sitting alongside Hubitat, and why we score its LAN app control at half marks.
| Platform | Score /100 | Local app control on the LAN | Local automation execution | Survives a vendor shutdown | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home Assistant | 100 | 20 / 20 | 20 / 20 | 15 / 15 | The reference implementation of local control. Cloud is an optional paid add-on for remote access and voice services, and everything works without it. |
| Hubitat Elevation | 87.5 | 20 / 20 | 20 / 20 | 15 / 15 | Rules run on the hub in milliseconds and survive an outage. Loses points only for having no local voice option and for requiring an account at registration. |
| Homey Pro | 62.5 | 10 / 20 | 20 / 20 | 7.5 / 15 | Automations are genuinely on-premise, but owners report the mobile app needing to reauthorize against the internet, which can lock you out mid-outage. Scored half on app control for that reason. |
| Apple Home | 60 | 20 / 20 | 20 / 20 | 7.5 / 15 | Automations run on the HomePod or Apple TV, so they survive an outage. Siri does not, there is no local API, and there is no way to export or back up your configuration. |
| Samsung SmartThings | 30 | 10 / 20 | 10 / 20 | 0 / 15 | Edge drivers execute on the hub, which is real local processing, but Samsung does not document which routines run locally during an outage. Scored half where the evidence is partial. |
| Google Home | 15 | 10 / 20 | 0 / 20 | 0 / 15 | Local Matter control covers lights, plugs and switches only. Routines and all voice remain cloud side, which the twelve hour outage in August 2026 demonstrated at scale. |
| Amazon Alexa | 5 | 0 / 20 | 0 / 20 | 0 / 15 | On-device voice processing was removed in March 2025 with no opt-out. Devices stay reachable at the protocol level, but nothing in the Alexa layer works without the internet. |
Physical switches, automations and anything bridged into Apple Home will keep working regardless. It is app access specifically that carries the risk. The broader picture is in what still works when the internet goes down.
The ownership question#
LG acquired an 80% stake in Athom, the company behind Homey. The founders stayed, and no product discontinuations followed the acquisition. That is worth stating plainly in both directions: a large parent company reduces the risk of the lights going out overnight, and it also means roadmap decisions now involve a consumer electronics giant with its own platform ambitions. The history of what happens when smart home companies change hands is in when a smart home company shuts down.
Who should buy it#
Buy Homey Pro if you own devices on three or more radios, you want one app, you need infrared control of air conditioners or media gear, or your goal is to expose legacy hardware to Apple Home, Google Home or Alexa through Matter with minimum effort.
Do not buy it if your budget matters and your house is mostly Wi-Fi and Matter devices, if you need Z-Wave Long Range, if 433 MHz was the reason you were interested (it is disabled in the US), or if you already have a Thread network you wanted the hub to join.
Against Hubitat: Homey has a far better app, infrared, and Thread onboard, and Hubitat has 800 series Z-Wave and a lower price. Against Home Assistant: Homey costs more and does less, and asks a fraction of the maintenance. The full field is in the seven platforms compared.
Can Homey Pro join my existing Thread network?
No. The Homey Pro 2026 forms its own Thread network rather than joining one you already run. If you have Thread devices on Apple, Google, Amazon or SmartThings, adding Homey creates a second Thread mesh in the same house, which splits your relays and complicates coverage.
Does the 433 MHz radio work in the United States?
No. Homey disables 433 MHz in the US, Canada and South Korea for regulatory reasons. Buyers outside those markets get it. If old 433 MHz sensors, remotes or blinds were the reason you were considering Homey, that use case is not available to US buyers.
Is the Homey Pro mini worth $200 less?
Only if you need Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Thread and Matter and nothing else. The mini has no Z-Wave, no Bluetooth, no infrared and no 433 MHz, and recovering those requires a $69 Homey Bridge, which brings the total to $318 for a still-incomplete setup. For most people the Pro is the honest purchase.
What does the Matter Bridge app actually expose?
It republishes Homey's Zigbee, Z-Wave, infrared, Bluetooth, 433 MHz and cloud devices as Matter accessories that Apple Home, Google Home, Alexa, SmartThings and Home Assistant can adopt. Expect generic device types: on, off, level, and basic sensor readings. Vendor-specific effects, scenes and firmware control do not survive the trip.
Does Homey work during an internet outage?
Flows run locally on the hub and keep working, as do the radios and anything bridged into a local ecosystem. The documented weakness is the mobile app, which owners report needing periodic internet access to reauthorize. If that falls due mid-outage you can lose app control of an otherwise healthy hub.
Does Homey support Z-Wave Long Range?
No. The Homey Pro 2026 carries a 700 series Z-Wave radio, and Long Range requires 800 series hardware plus controller support. If you need to reach a detached garage or a gate at the end of a driveway, look at an 800 series hub instead.
Did LG buying Athom change anything?
LG acquired an 80% stake in Athom, the founders stayed, and no products were discontinued as a result. Pricing rose in June 2026 for stated component cost reasons rather than anything traceable to the acquisition. Treat it as a stability positive with a normal amount of roadmap uncertainty.
Can Homey replace Apple Home or Google Home?
It can replace them as the automation engine, and it has no voice assistant of its own. The usual arrangement is Homey owning the devices and automations, with an ecosystem app and speaker used for voice, which is the pattern described in running two platforms on purpose.
Primary sources
Specification and vendor documentation we checked while writing this page. Where a claim depends on firmware behaviour rather than a published spec, the page says so inline.