airEkey and homey: the perfect combination for the smart home

Smart devices open up more and more possibilities. However, the more they move into your home, the more complicated it becomes. Because there are many different manufacturers, standards, etc. around smart home trends right now.

The result of this is a certain level of confusion very quickly, and not all devices from different brands can or want to communicate with each other. But that's exactly what a smart home needs to make everyday life easier, more comfortable, and ideally save energy.

Requires a Smart Home Moderator

airEkey Smart Lock makes your door lock smart. However, it would be ideal if they were all connected. You can then automatically turn off the lights, turn off the heat and lock the front door when you leave the house in the morning.

There are many options for linking different devices and manufacturers. Voice assistants Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa are examples here. However, in the end, your options are very limited, especially when it comes to complex processes. And due to the lack of Apple devices, not everyone uses HomeKit.

This is where homey comes in. At first glance, the humble little ball is a true multifunctional smart home hub. We introduced them to you in a test some time ago. In this blog post, I want to take a deeper look at this issue and describe my impressions and experiences after a good year.

A Year With Home: My Experience

I've been using homey in my smart home for about a year. So far I can only have good things to say about the gateway. I primarily use this device to integrate non-HomeKit-enabled devices into Apple's smart home systems. Because this is also possible.

But homey has also proven itself to me of various automatic jobs or processes that can be invoked via voice control. I especially like the large selection of compatible brands and devices. Thanks to this, products from different manufacturers can be networked that would never have come together without the home.

In addition to that, I created an automation system for my small living room home theater that combines screen and shutter controls from Somfy Tahoma, a universal remote for controlling devices like projectors, Logitech Harmony, and lighting from Philips Hue.  So I can darken the room and start the home theater with one command (via voice or an app, for example).So I can darken the room and start the home theater with one command (via voice or an app, for example).