A powerful smart home system for the masses

Design, installation and protocol support

• Does most of what the Homey Pro does
• Can be expanded with a Bridge
• Ethernet but no Wi-Fi

I recommend taking a look at my Homey Pro review, which goes into detail about how the system works and what it does. A very powerful smart home automation platform, the Homey Pro and Homey Pro Mini add the ability to connect devices directly to the bridge and run Flows (automations) locally, outside the cloud, for better performance.

Externally, the Homey Pro Mini looks much like any other smarthome hub. This particular version has rounded corners on a square box, rather than the round Homey Pro.

On the back is the USB-C power input, and the Ethernet port, but there’s no Wi-Fi. That’s fine in my eyes, as I prefer hubs to be wired into place for stability, and I have Ethernet run to a cupboard that houses my smart home devices.

Strangely, the Homey Pro has Wi-Fi but only supports Ethernet via an optional, paid-for adaptor.

Installing the Homey Pro Mini is easy: use the app to quickly add it to a home, then create the rooms you have for device organisation. If you already have a Homey Pro, then you can join the Homey Pro Mini using the HomeyLink app.

HomeyLink presents all devices as being in one location, whether they’re in a large home or they’re in two separate locations. There are a few limitations with such a system, but having multiple Homey bridges work together does expand the capabilities of the system.

The core difference between the Homey Pro Mini and Homey Pro is down to the device support they have and the memory. The Homey Pro Mini has a quad-core 1.5GHz processor and 1GB of RAM. That’s the same processor as the Homey Pro but half the RAM, and it’s one quarter the RAM of the 2026 version of the Homey Pro.

This reduces the number of apps that you can run on the Homey Pro Mini (around 20) compared to either Pro model (60+), but for most homes and people, this really won’t be an issue. Only heavy users with a lot of automations will need the additional features of the regular Pro models.

There’s also a difference in radios. With the Homey Pro Mini, you get Thread, Zigbee and Matter support, but that’s it. There’s no Z-Wave, Bluetooth, 433MHz or IR support. Largely, these are things that most homes can do without; in fact, I’m down to one single Z-Wave device, a Yale Keyless Connected Smartlock.

If you want to add the missing protocols, then a Homey Bridge can be added to gain these features. That’s a clever upgrade route, and a Homey Pro Mini and Homey Bridge are cheaper than a Pro.

So, why not just buy a Homey Bridge? This hub runs apps in the cloud and incurs a subscription cost after you go over the five-device limit. To cut out ongoing costs, you need a Homey Pro, and the Mini is a great value alternative.

You can also run a Homey Pro and Homey Pro Mini on the same network, although that’s definitely overkill for most homes.

Features and performance

• Excellent range of device support
• Very powerful automations

Since I last reviewed Homey, LG has invested heavily in the brand. It’s a partnership that has worked well. LG’s investment has given the brand prominence, but it hasn’t tried to dumb down what’s a very powerful smart home platform.

I’m impressed by how well device support has grown. Previously, Homey was a bit limited and I couldn’t switch entirely to the platform due to the lack of support for certain key components in my smart home.

Today, it’s a different story. Matter support has dramatically improved, giving direct control over a growing number of devices, and there’s still an option for cloud control for other devices, too. And, there are now more big-name companies onboard.

Device support is excellent, both officially and unofficially. When I last used Homey, I could add individual Ring Alarm sensors to the system via Z-Wave, which wasn’t that useful to me.

Now, the official Ring integration supports cameras and doorbells, and the community have come to my rescue for my Ring Alarm. Thanks to the Ring Security app, I can add my Ring Base Station via the cloud, so I can control my alarm via Homey, or use it as a trigger.

Matter support really makes life easier in a lot of cases. Adding my Aqara devices, such as the Valve Controller T1, via Matter was easy, just by adding the M200 hub. I’ve got Tado X at home, and I found it easy to add my devices to Homey.

Homey is generally more powerful than the competition, too. For example, with HomeKit, my Tado X devices either give me an on/off trigger or I can trigger an automation when the temperature rises above or drops below a target. Which one I get seems to vary by device and day.

In Homey, the Tado X devices give me the on/off and temperature triggers, but I also can trigger Flows based on humidity and temperature changes for a set period of time. For example, a Flow can start when the temperature exceeds 18°C for 20 minutes.  

Flows are far more powerful in Homey than other systems, too. Thanks to the ‘And’ option, it’s possible to trigger a Flow based on multiple triggers from multiple devices in a far more granular way. 

For example, with a Fiabaro motion sensor, I can turn my Hue lights on only when motion is detected; the luminance level is below a set level; and it’s between sunrise and sunset. That says, turn the lights on if I’m around and it suddenly gets dark during the day.

Having this level of power means that when I want to do something a little more complicated, Homey is there with the tools.

Should you buy it?