Homey vs Aqara: which sensible house hub is best for you?

A sensible house hub can imply very various things relying on what you need it to do. Some hubs are primarily designed to make one producer’s merchandise work higher collectively; others are supposed to sit down above a number of manufacturers and protocols and act because the management centre for the entire house.

That distinction is especially necessary when evaluating Homey vs Aqara. Homey’s Professional vary is constructed round being a multi-brand automation platform, whereas Aqara’s hubs are designed at first across the Aqara ecosystem, despite the fact that newer fashions such because the Hub M3 have grow to be significantly extra open by Matter. For a broader have a look at the choices obtainable, see our Finest sensible house hubs information.

That makes this much less of a simple {hardware} comparability than it’d initially seem. When you’re planning a house stuffed with Aqara sensors, switches and locks, an Aqara hub could be the extra wise start line. When you’re mixing Aqara with Philips Hue, IKEA, Sonos, SmartThings, Z-Wave merchandise and different manufacturers, Homey has a a lot stronger argument because the central platform.

Right here’s how the 2 approaches examine.

Homey vs Aqara: value and {hardware} choices

Homey’s present vary centres on the Homey Professional (2026) and Homey Professional mini. The Professional (2026) launched at $399/€399, though Homey subsequently raised the worth to $449/€449 from June 2026. The Professional now has 4GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, alongside built-in help for Zigbee 3.0, Z-Wave, Thread, Matter, Bluetooth LE, infrared and 433MHz radio.

The Professional mini is the significantly cheaper choice at $249/€249 earlier than regional pricing variations. It has 1GB of RAM and built-in Zigbee, Thread, Matter and Ethernet, however doesn’t embrace Z-Wave, Bluetooth LE, infrared or 433MHz radio. These could be added by the $69/€69 Homey Bridge.

That makes the Professional mini attention-grabbing in order for you Homey’s software program and multi-brand strategy with out paying flagship cash. However there’s an necessary catch: when you add Homey Bridge to get better these lacking protocols, the worth hole turns into smaller.

Aqara’s vary is extra simple in case your most important curiosity is Aqara {hardware}. The Hub M3 is at the moment listed at £129.99 from Aqara within the UK, whereas the older Hub M2 is listed at £59.99. 

The M3 is far more than a primary Zigbee gateway. It has Zigbee 3.0, Thread and Matter help, dual-band 2.4GHz/5GHz Wi-Fi, Ethernet with PoE, Bluetooth 5.1 and a 360-degree IR blaster. It will probably additionally join as much as 127 Thread/Zigbee gadgets in line with Aqara’s specs.

It even has a 95dB speaker for alerts and bulletins, plus 8GB of encrypted native storage.

So there’s a transparent value distinction:

433MHz performance varies by area.

Winner: Aqara for worth, Homey for breadth.

Homey vs Aqara: gadget and protocol help

Homey Professional is designed to convey totally different applied sciences underneath one roof. Its present {hardware} helps Matter, Thread, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth LE, infrared, 433MHz and Wi-Fi, with integrations supplied by Homey Apps. Homey says its Professional platform can run each official and community-developed apps, giving it a significantly wider model ecosystem than a standard single-brand hub.

Which means an Aqara movement sensor can sit alongside a Philips Hue gentle, a Z-Wave thermostat and one other producer’s Wi-Fi gadget, with Homey offering the automation layer between them.

And Aqara isn’t excluded from that equation. Homey has a devoted Aqara/Xiaomi integration and explicitly paperwork pairing Aqara merchandise immediately with Homey. You choose Aqara within the Homey app, select the gadget and pair it like some other supported product.

This is a crucial level if you happen to’re contemplating a Homey particularly since you already personal Aqara sensors: you don’t robotically want an Aqara hub simply since you’re shopping for Aqara gadgets.

Some Aqara Zigbee merchandise can pair immediately with Homey. However that doesn’t imply the Aqara hub is redundant.

Aqara has more and more adopted Matter-over-Thread and dual-protocol gadgets, and newer merchandise can behave in another way relying on how they’re linked. Aqara itself says its dual-protocol merchandise can use Thread for Matter ecosystems and not using a hub, whereas Zigbee mode can unlock Aqara-specific performance and options.

The FP300 presence multi-sensor is an efficient instance. It helps each Zigbee and Thread, with its Zigbee connection providing extra Aqara Dwelling customisation. Homey group testing has additionally discovered that the FP300 can join on to Homey by Matter or by Zigbee, relying on the setup.

The larger difficulty is characteristic depth.

A Matter connection isn’t essentially equal to a local connection. Matter standardises what gadgets can expose, so a complicated Aqara characteristic could not seem when the identical gadget is linked by Matter.

That’s why the straightforward concept of “Matter means I don’t want any hubs” doesn’t all the time maintain up.

The M3, for instance, acts as each a Matter controller and a Matter bridge. It will probably convey third-party Matter gadgets into Aqara Dwelling, whereas additionally exposing supported Aqara Zigbee gadgets to platforms together with Apple Dwelling, Alexa, Google Dwelling, SmartThings, Dwelling Assistant and Homey.

There’s one other limitation price figuring out: the M3 isn’t a common Zigbee hub for arbitrary third-party Zigbee merchandise. Aqara’s personal ecosystem stays the centre of its Zigbee help. That’s a significant distinction from Homey, whose complete proposition is to make use of its supported apps and radios to convey a number of producers collectively.

Winner: Homey

Homey vs Aqara automations: Homey Flows vs the Aqara app

Each platforms can deal with the essential smart-home logic most individuals truly use. Need the hallway gentle to activate when movement is detected? Each can do it. Need the heating to react to a temperature sensor? Each can do it. Need one thing extra sophisticated, nonetheless, and Homey’s strategy turns into far more attention-grabbing.

Homey’s customary Circulate system relies round When, And and Then playing cards. A set off may very well be a button press, a time or a tool occasion; situations can then examine issues comparable to time or whether or not you’re house; actions can management lights, temperature and different gadgets.

Then there’s Superior Circulate, which turns these playing cards into a visible automation canvas. It provides instruments comparable to Any and All logic, delays, error dealing with, tags and HomeyScript, permitting extra sophisticated automations to be constructed with out every part changing into one lengthy record of situations.

For instance, you possibly can construct a routine that successfully says:

If the entrance door opens, and no one has been detected within the hallway for 20 seconds, and the home is in Away mode, then activate the hallway lights, begin a siren and ship a notification.

The necessary half isn’t that Aqara can’t do conditional automation. It will probably.

Aqara Dwelling’s automation system additionally makes use of triggers, situations and actions. Aqara’s documentation describes automations the place a presence occasion triggers a examine of one other gadget’s state earlier than an motion is carried out. Its newer automation system provides extra granular WHEN → IF → THEN logic, together with state-based situations and timing.

Aqara additionally helps native automation. The M3 is designed as an Edge Hub, shifting appropriate automation processing onto the native community quite than counting on the cloud. Aqara says native automations can proceed working when the web connection is unavailable, though cloud-dependent features comparable to push notifications nonetheless require web entry.

So Aqara isn’t some primary hub with a handful of preset routines. Its automation system is now significantly extra succesful. The distinction is scope.

An Aqara automation is at its greatest if you’re connecting Aqara sensors, switches, lights, locks and different Aqara {hardware}. Homey’s Circulate system is designed to make gadgets from totally different ecosystems take part in the identical automation.

Winner: Homey.

Do you really need each Homey and Aqara?

When you’ve purchased a Homey Professional after which begin shopping for Aqara gadgets, it’s tempting to imagine you also needs to purchase an Aqara hub in order that every part could be managed “correctly”.

You don’t essentially must.

Many Aqara gadgets could be linked on to Homey, and Homey’s official Aqara integration exists particularly for this goal. However there are good causes to maintain an Aqara hub within the setup.

The primary is gadget performance. Some Aqara merchandise expose extra performance by their native Aqara connection than by a generic Matter connection. Aqara itself notes that Matter help varies by gadget kind, whereas its dual-protocol merchandise can retain Aqara-specific performance when working by Zigbee.

The second is firmware updates and gadget administration. That is the place a one-hub technique can grow to be much less handy than anticipated. A Homey set up could be the place the place you automate every part, whereas an Aqara hub can stay the place the place you handle sure Aqara gadgets and entry manufacturer-specific options.

There have additionally been circumstances the place customers integrating Aqara gadgets into Homey by the M3’s Matter bridge have run into restoration or re-pairing points after gadgets lose energy. That’s a sensible cause to not assume that placing each Aqara product behind a Matter bridge will all the time be the cleanest resolution.

And the reverse is true: shopping for Homey doesn’t magically remove each different bridge. Philips Hue, IKEA and different ecosystems can nonetheless have causes to retain their native hubs, significantly the place these hubs present options, firmware updates or gadget performance {that a} third-party integration doesn’t expose.

That isn’t actually a failure of Homey. It’s a consequence of how fragmented smart-home {hardware} nonetheless is. You possibly can run each and have Homey coordinate the broader house whereas Aqara continues dealing with Aqara-specific {hardware}.

For somebody ranging from scratch with lots of Aqara gadgets, nonetheless, shopping for each from day one isn’t essentially justified. Begin with the platform that matches the gadgets you truly intend to purchase.

Homey vs Aqara for voice assistants and sensible shows

Neither Homey nor the Aqara M3 is a great show, so that you’ll nonetheless want one thing like a Nest Hub, Echo Present, HomePod or one other appropriate gadget in order for you a display within the house. The distinction is how the hub feeds into these ecosystems.

Homey helps Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and Siri Shortcuts, and Homey Professional can now additionally act as a Matter Bridge for platforms comparable to Apple Dwelling, Google Dwelling and Alexa. Which means gadgets linked to Homey, together with some non-Matter Zigbee, Z-Wave, infrared and 433MHz gadgets, could be uncovered to a different smart-home platform after they map to a supported Matter gadget kind.

That is significantly helpful if, for instance, you may have a Z-Wave thermostat that you simply need to seem in Apple Dwelling. Homey can maintain management of the thermostat whereas presenting it to Apple Dwelling by Matter. Moreover, Google Dwelling integration additionally permits you to management Homey gadgets and run Homey Flows with voice instructions.

Aqara’s M3 takes a barely totally different route. It’s immediately appropriate with Apple Dwelling, Alexa, Google Dwelling and SmartThings, and its Matter Bridge can expose supported Aqara gadgets to these ecosystems. That makes Aqara a very pure match if your house is already centred round a kind of platforms.

There’s a pleasant benefit to the M3 right here, too: its built-in IR blaster means it could actually management appropriate infrared tools comparable to air conditioners. Aqara can mix that with a temperature sensor and expose the ensuing AC management to third-party platforms by Matter.

Homey additionally has infrared help on the Professional, however its broader attraction is once more the identical: it isn’t attempting to make one producer’s gadgets the centre of your house.

Winner: Draw, relying in your ecosystem.

Homey vs Aqara: which do you have to purchase?

The most important mistake can be selecting between these two purely by evaluating the variety of radios every hub comprises.

The Aqara Hub M3 is the higher purchase if you happen to’re constructing an Aqara-first sensible house. At £129.99, it’s considerably cheaper than Homey’s flagship {hardware}, whereas nonetheless providing Zigbee 3.0, Thread, Matter, dual-band Wi-Fi, PoE, IR management and native automation. It additionally offers Aqara’s sensors, switches, locks and different merchandise entry to the options they had been designed round.

It’s additionally far more open than older Aqara hubs. Matter means the M3 isn’t merely a locked field that retains Aqara gadgets inside Aqara Dwelling; it could actually bridge supported gadgets into Apple Dwelling, Google Dwelling, Alexa, SmartThings, Dwelling Assistant and Homey. 

However Homey is the higher selection if you happen to’re constructing a wise house quite than an Aqara house. That’s the essential distinction.

In case your plan entails Aqara sensors alongside Philips Hue lights, Z-Wave gadgets, IKEA merchandise, Sonos, sensible blinds and different manufacturers, Homey offers you a single automation setting able to connecting these totally different applied sciences. Homey Professional (2026) is dear at $449/€449, however you’re paying for its mixture of radios, native processing, apps and automation instruments quite than merely for a gateway to at least one producer’s merchandise.

The Homey Professional mini is arguably essentially the most attention-grabbing choice for individuals who just like the Homey strategy however can’t justify the flagship value. At $249/€249, it consists of Zigbee, Thread and Matter, with Homey Bridge obtainable if you happen to later want Z-Wave, Bluetooth, infrared or 433MHz.

And don’t overlook the opportunity of utilizing Homey and Aqara collectively. Homey doesn’t have to interchange each producer’s hub to be helpful. In a extra sophisticated sensible house, preserving an Aqara M3 for Aqara-specific performance whereas utilizing Homey because the higher-level automation platform can truly make extra sense than forcing each gadget by a single integration.

Homey vs Aqara: last verdict

In the end, Homey is the platform, whereas Aqara is the ecosystem. The Aqara M3 has narrowed the interoperability hole significantly because of Matter, but it surely hasn’t modified the basic cause to purchase Homey: bringing a messy assortment of various smart-home manufacturers into one place. Conversely, in case your buying record already says Aqara subsequent to many of the merchandise, paying a number of instances extra for Homey could clear up an issue you don’t even have.