6 things you must know about Homey Pro advanced flows

[@TheRiehlThing42]

I was struggling with getting Home Assistant to work consistently with automations. So many basic ones just didn't seem to want to work right. Homey Pro has been a breath of fresh air. Advanced flows is so fun to tweak around, figuring out fun things. Just last night, I realized having a theme song play every time I entered my room if the lights were off, would get annoying. So now I have it do that only the first time I've entered, then disable that flow. The flow gets reenabled once I leave the house. Could do a combination of basic flows for the basic functions, like turning main lights on and off, but then advanced flows that will disable or enable the flows. Just fun to figure the things out. Where Home Assistant, I would have to watch video after video and trial and error. Having the Imperial March entrance music is fun, and then if I'm away from home, and someone enters, with Drowning Pool Let The Bodies Hit The Floor blast at full volume as a deterrent is also fun. I do notice that there is a lag on some things with Homey Pro compared to Home Assistant. If I enter an area with motion sensor for lights, there's about a one second delay before the light turns on. Same for the door sensor to turn on a closet light. Beyond that, I've been happy with Homey Pro. Just hoping more and more apps and functionality comes.

[@latin105fm]

Purely based on your Homey Pro content, I am now officially subscribed 👍🏼 keep them coming

[@DIYSmartHomeGuy1]

more to come!

[@VideoNOLA]

Breath of fresh air coming from hubitat!

[@DIYSmartHomeGuy1]

Hubitat is still exceptionally capable (and cheaper), but for ease of use I’m blown away by how much easier the homey pro is to setup and automate.

[@eovermeer]

04:30 Push Confirmations, are they still available? I only can Send Messages to a User.

[@Appmyhome]

Great summary of flows. Plus you answered some questions I had like can you have more than one flow per advanced flow. That will really simplify things. One thing I haven’t figured out is if there is a way to increment or decrement a variable.

[@DIYSmartHomeGuy1]

The short answer is, yes, there is a way to do it. The longer answer is there are several ways to do it and none of them are super intuitive, unfortunately. you’ll have to either add a little math into your logic card number space, or you can add some apps like better logic, countdown timers and some others that give you more options. May be a video in and of itself (once I figure out the best way to do it)

[@daphnetilling6034]

Was there not a flow type thing in or you could add to home assistant? I really like the idea of the flow thing as it looks simple to work with

[@MRobi19]

Node-Red. Can be used with Home Assistant, Hubitat, any MQTT platform, and I'm sure tons of others. HA has it as an add-on

[@daphnetilling6034]

I thought there was one, thank you, now just need to go and check it out :)

[@fredherbert2739]

@@MRobi19I think a good video idea for this channel might be showing us how to set up NR in those platforms

[@MRobi19]

@@fredherbert2739 it's not a bad idea. And a great setup video to do it. "many saw the last video on flows with homey pro, here's how to get a similar setup on other popular platforms.

[@DIYSmartHomeGuy1]

Yes, these are good ideas. Ive done comparisons myself and I had a friend come over with no experience in Hubitat or homey come and try to build the same automation in each platform. I’m also dabbling in home assistant as you can see. Excited to show the differences.

[@Wonderdude63]

This is was Node-red should have been. Wish we had this for Home Assistant

[@atom6_]

There are whole factories running on node-red. This is simple stuff.

[@DIYSmartHomeGuy1]

Look for my complete node red review on my new channel: DIY Factory Automation Guy.

[@fredherbert2739]

Thanks for the video. I’m sort of regretting the impulsive c8 purchase after seeing this, but if I recall in your original video correctly, you said HP still needs to add further devices that are common in the US market, so maybe I should just relax. Would love to see more on the HP doing things easier that are difficult on Hubitat and HA.

[@DIYSmartHomeGuy1]

The c8 is not a bad hub, just not as easy to use or as polished as the Homey Pro. Homey has added some compatibility since my last video like zooz and third reality, but they still have some catching up to do. Will definitely have more vids coming up

[@MRobi19]

Node-Red has a set of Hubitat nodes that are fully compatible with your C8. HP looks to have blatantly ripped off Node Red when they designed their automation engine. So you can do this now, and while not having used the HP engine, I'd bed NR is far more capable as well as very expandable.

[@fredherbert2739]

I have tried to use node red with hubitat and I was not successful. I am not particularly good at this sort of stuff. I’m not even sure why I was not successful (was NR not set up correctLy or was it the flows, or something else). The NR thread on habitat community is, at last look, so long that I cannot even begin to comprehend it. I should point out when I first started to try it, the thread was pretty new. I don’t know what info is current and what is outdated, so I am hopeless.

[@fredherbert2739]

You know, maybe that’s a video idea for you……show us how to set up Node Red in hubitat, and HA and any other relevant platforms!

[@MRobi19]

@@fredherbert2739 ya, I switched off of hubitat about 2yrs ago, and that thread was already huge when I left lol. The hubitat node palette though is really solid now. May be worth giving it another shot. Offloading automations off the hubitat hub really sped everything up too. Automations ran so much quicker and the hub crashed a whole lot less

[@stephennutt2565]

That's just Node Red light. They even use "flow" terminology. Only plus is that it runs on Homey Pro instead of on Raspberry Pi like i do with Hubitat. The cost of 2 Hubitats plus Raspberry Pi is less than Homey Pro and Node Red works across a lot more platforms.

[@bouke93]

Homey Pro is made with a Raspberry Pi inside.

[@DIYSmartHomeGuy1]

If you have the time and know how to deal with two separate automation systems running in separate hardware, node red/Hubitat is a fine solution. But homey pro is much less of a headache. And I have yet to find something I am doing with Hubitat I can’t with homey flows (assuming you have compatible devices)

[@JasonReuter]

Reminds me of stringify I miss that app

[@MRobi19]

So basically Homey blatantly knocked off node-red.

[@DIYSmartHomeGuy1]

I think they both knocked off Stringify.

[@DIYSmartHomeGuy1]

Pretty much! It’s more polished and easier to use, though. I hope every hub copies it. It’s a great way to build automations.

[@isaac827]

It kind of looked like a dumbed down version to me, which is fine for accessibility.

[@MRobi19]

@@DIYSmartHomeGuy1 is it more simplified or just prettied up? Not sure when stringify launched but NR has been out since the 2000's and open sourced in 2012 or 13. The whole concept of flows though is great! Has a very short learning curve and can build the most advanced automations anybody can dream of. Great for beginners and pros

[@DouglasKrug]

Lol. Yeah and sailing is just like driving a car. Exactly the same terminology and method. :-/

[@frydenland]

Some really weird nitpicking going on here. Like the «When, And, Then» naming conventions. Actually preferring "conditions" over "and what else" as the most logical naming scheme for the common man seems a bit biassed. Maybe the word "Condition" is more commonly used in mainly english speaking countries, but the rest of the world usually resembles the word with a "constraint" of some sort. Homey caters to a multilingual customer audience. Further, the gripe with Homey naming automations as "Flows". Bringing up a local hockey reference as an actual counter argument seems unnecessary and redundant. The automations literally flows (even visually). You can witness this by simply testing your flow, from one card to another. Brilliant. My take on this is that you where so impressed with Homey, that you felt you had to bring in a few counter arguments (after all, your channel was mainly invested in that other smart hub eco system (unknown to the rest of the world), so the transition must be eased (in favour of your current audience). I get it. Just don't make up silly arguments. The fact that a lot of the most commonly used US products are not yet supported is, however a solid argument. But all that is about to change. They only just recently targeted the US. In Europe, Homey has cemented itself as the de facto industry leader in smart home system hubs in a matter of only a few years. It will soon be the most commonly used smart home hub in the US as well. I come from Home Assistant. I'm a backend developer. I've never had any problems by abusing YAML to get along (expect from it being extremely time consuming), having to update something everyday, or getting used to the ever changing horrible UX, probably made by a programmers mindset. The thing that got me hooked to Homey was "Advanced Flows". It allows me to be a lot more creative within a far shorter time span. I can "program" flows in Homey that are way more advanced than anything else I could possibly imagine in Home Assistant. Simply because I would not bother to do the same kind of automations in HA. The logic card in Homey is also very powerfull and often overlooked (probably because you need that programming mind set to make full advantage of it).

[@DIYSmartHomeGuy1]

Nitpicking my nitpick. So meta. But obviously if my biggest complaints are the naming conventions (I stand by that complaint), it must be a pretty good product.