Choosing a smart home hub in late 2026 comes down to a simple question: do you want a polished box that does everything out of the box, or an open platform you assemble yourself? A new hands-on comparison from Rocks on Galaxy, published on November 6, puts the two leading answers head to head — Athom’s Homey Pro and the open-source Home Assistant — and the verdict is refreshingly clear-cut. Homey Pro is the turnkey multi-radio hub you can set up in an afternoon. Home Assistant is the open platform with deeper integrations, a lower hardware floor, and a steeper learning curve. Here is how they stack up.
Homey Pro in late 2026: the turnkey multi-radio box
Homey Pro (2026) is Athom’s local-first hub, and its selling point is the sheer number of radios packed into a single device. It ships with Matter v1.5, a built-in Thread Border Router, Zigbee 3.0, Z-Wave 700, Bluetooth LE, Wi-Fi, infrared, and — depending on the region — 433 MHz. The 2026 hardware doubles RAM to 4 GB compared with the Early 2023 model while keeping the same radio set.
That completeness comes at a price. On June 1, 2026, Athom raised the list price from $399 to $449 (€449 in Europe), citing RAM and eMMC cost pressure. Remote access, the Homey App Store, and cloud backups remain included, with no subscription required for core Pro features.
Rocks on Galaxy tested Homey Pro hands-on for two weeks and scored it 9/10, praising its exceptionally powerful automation — Flow for simple rules, Advanced Flow for canvas-style logic — along with broad protocol support and fast responses. Ease of use scored 10/10 and value 9/10. The caveats, scored 7/10, are worth knowing before you buy: Ethernet is not built in (you need Homey’s optional adapter), and the hub could not join an existing Thread network in the test setup — it creates its own as a border router. There is also a regional footnote for North American buyers: 433 MHz transmission is disabled on Homey Pro in the United States, Canada, and South Korea, so do not buy it for 433 MHz remotes.
Home Assistant: the open platform you assemble
Home Assistant is not a single product. The software is free and releases monthly, and the hardware ranges from a spare mini-PC to Nabu Casa’s official boxes. For a fair comparison, the guide uses the beginner path most Homey buyers would otherwise consider: Home Assistant Green at $199 (€179), plus a radio if you need Zigbee or Thread.
Green includes Gigabit Ethernet, 4 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of eMMC storage, but no built-in Zigbee, Z-Wave, or Thread radio. Matter over Wi-Fi and Ethernet works once the Matter integration and Matter Server are set up, and the Matter integration is certified on the Home Assistant side. For Thread-based Matter devices, you need a Thread Border Router on the LAN — that can be an Apple, Google, or Amazon unit you already own, or a Home Assistant radio such as the Connect ZBT-2, priced at about $49 (€45).
One design detail matters: the Connect ZBT-2 is dedicated to either Zigbee or Thread, not both at once. Nabu Casa documents this clearly, noting that running both protocols on one stick proved unreliable in its testing. Z-Wave needs yet another stick, such as the ZWA-2. So a Home Assistant setup with a Homey-like radio stack means Green plus a ZBT-2 plus a Z-Wave stick — still often cheaper than Homey Pro, but more boxes and more decisions.
What you get in return is breadth and pace. Home Assistant’s November release, 2026.11, added Matter 1.5 camera support with live WebRTC video, a built-in Marketplace that replaces the old HACS community store, new radon triggers, bulk voice-assistant exposure, and editor shortcuts. The platform’s Lovelace dashboards, UI automations, scripts, blueprints, and YAML give entity-level control that no sealed appliance matches. Local-first is the default design, and cloud is opt-in through Home Assistant Cloud (Nabu Casa) for remote access and voice features. The trade-off is maintenance: you own backups, operating-system updates, and the breaking-change notes that arrive every month.
Matter and Thread: same standards, different path
Both hubs speak Matter, the Connectivity Standards Alliance interoperability layer that runs over Wi-Fi or Thread, but the path to a working Thread network differs. On Homey Pro, the Thread Border Router is built in. On a typical Home Assistant Green setup, you add a radio or reuse a border router already on your network.
The Homey test caveat matters here too. Homey Pro creating its own Thread network is not the same as joining someone else’s Apple or Google Thread fabric, so households that already have a Thread mesh should plan commissioning carefully. And while Matter covers a useful class of devices, it does not cover everything — whole-home infrared air conditioning, every Z-Wave lock feature, or Home Assistant’s deep cloud integrations all sit outside the standard. Matter narrows the gap between the two hubs; it does not erase the choice.
Price reality check
- Homey Pro: $449 / €449 one-time. Optional Ethernet adapter and Homey Bridge for extra coverage. No required subscription for core features.
- Home Assistant Green path: about $199 / €179, plus about $49 / €45 for a Connect ZBT-2 if you need Zigbee or Thread, plus an optional Z-Wave stick. The software is free, with an optional Nabu Casa subscription for easy remote access and voice.
- Home Assistant DIY: a Raspberry Pi 5 or mini-PC can undercut Green further; you pay in time and support risk.
Homey Pro costs more up front when you value built-in Z-Wave, Zigbee, Thread, and infrared in one chassis. Home Assistant is cheaper if you only need Wi-Fi and Matter devices today and add radios later — or if you already own a border router and a spare computer.
Who should pick what?
Choose Homey Pro if you want one appliance, a mix of legacy and modern radios (especially Z-Wave plus Zigbee plus Matter), Flow automations that non-technical household members can edit, and you accept the roughly $450 price and the Thread joining limitation. Athom also sells a mid-range Homey Pro mini at $249 if your setup is mostly Matter, Thread, and Zigbee and you have Ethernet at the hub.
Choose Home Assistant if you want maximum integrations, custom dashboards, community experiments through the new built-in Marketplace, Matter cameras from the 2026.11 release, and you are willing to own the radios, backups, and monthly updates yourself. Green is the least fiddly official starting point; a Raspberry Pi 5 works fine if you already like Linux boxes.
And if your only need is Apple Home or Google Home with a handful of Matter bulbs, the guide’s advice is to choose neither alone — start with the platform app you already have and revisit the hub question when your automations outgrow it. A hybrid setup, exposing Homey devices to Home Assistant or vice versa, exists but doubles the complexity and only makes sense if you already know why you need it.
The bottom line from the comparison is that there is no wrong answer, only a wrong fit. Homey Pro wins on turnkey radios and Flow; Home Assistant wins on integration breadth, community pace, and total cost if you already tinker. Pick the hub that matches how much of the smart home you actually want to manage — and how much of it you want to build.