Credit: Homey

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Homey’s smart home hubs are a great way to run a private and local smart home from one box. Now, the company is taking on Home Assistant with Homey Self-Hosted Server, an operating system you can run on your own hardware.

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Homey currently sells the Homey Pro and Homey Pro mini as plug-and-play smart home hubs, giving you something similar to the flexibility and customization in Home Assistant, but without learning how Docker or Linux works. The mobile apps, third-party service connections, and card-based automations are also strong selling points for Homey, depending on what your needs are for smart home automations and control.

The Homey Self-Hosted Server has now arrived, which brings the Homey Pro’s software to third-party hardware. Windows, Raspberry Pi, macOS, Linux, Docker, Synology, QNAP, Proxmax, and TrueNAS are all fully supported. It’s the same exact experience as the Homey Pro, but without the box.

The server can communicate to LAN, cloud, and Matter devices without additional hardware, and Thread devices are supported when a Thread border router is available on the network. You can set up a Homey Bridge to connect Zigbee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth LE, 433 Mhz, and infrared devices.

Credit: Homey

The company said in its announcement, "This new software-only product brings the Homey Pro operating system to users’ own hardware. Designed for advanced users and enthusiasts, Homey Self-Hosted Server delivers the same powerful, local-first smart home experience without requiring dedicated Homey hardware."

Honey’s software currently supports over 50,000 devices from more than 1,000 brands. You can also set up energy usage monitoring with Homey Energy, and you can design your own custom dashboards. The company claims that all personal data processing happens locally, with "no profiling or other privacy-invading uses."

This move turns the Homey software into a more direct Home Assistant competitor, though there are still some important differences. Homey is closed-source software, while Home Assistant is fully open-source. Some smart home devices and third-party services might not be supported by both platforms—you can check Homey’s apps list and Home Assistant’s integrations page. If the easy setup of the Homey Pro sounds ideal, you can get something close to that with the Home Assistant Green.

Homey Self-Hosted Server is available now from Homey’s website, priced at $5 per month or $150 for a lifetime license. There’s a one-month free trial, so you have plenty of time to test all your devices and services before you fork over money. The subscription includes OTA updates, remote login, a cloud AI, and voice assistant support.

Source: Homey