I’m excited to report that I managed to get my first few flows stay in Homey. I linked the Aqara T1 LED bulb to each Alexa and Homey and have a few flows working utilizing that system.
I additionally bought the Aqara water leak sensor linked to Homey and am completely thrilled with it up to now. It’s actually excellent for my use case.
However it’s not all excellent. I observed that I’m lacking out on some options and performance with the Aqara gentle bulb together with the Homey Professional hub in comparison with if I had an Aqara hub as an alternative.
It makes me marvel if I ought to have simply purchased an Aqara hub as an alternative of the Homey Professional, however extra on that a little bit later…
My first Homey flows
The primary flows that I arrange are fairly primary, however you must begin someplace, proper?
That is what I began with:
- Water leak battery monitoring
- Eating desk gentle battery monitoring
- Kitchen water leak detected
The primary two are actually easy. If the battery proportion in both system will get all the way down to 10%, I get a push notification and a notification contained in the Homey app reminding me to go and alter the battery. Straightforward peasy.

The final one is definitely serving to to resolve an actual drawback we have now in my house. If a water leak is detected on the bench beside the kitchen sink, that is what occurs:
- The eating desk gentle turns ON
- The Sonos Arc soundbar says “Kitchen water leak detected” at 40% quantity
- I get a push notification
- I get a persistent notification contained in the Homey app
I’d say it’s fairly good for protecting most situations the place both my spouse or myself might need forgotten that the water filter is working and alerting us to the actual fact. In fact, there are most likely situations the place I nonetheless won’t learn about it straight away, however it provides me peace of thoughts and it’s definitely higher than what we had earlier than, which was nothing!
Undoubtedly well worth the cash for the water sensor for my part.

I’m shopping for extra Aqara gadgets
I’m so impressed with the Aqara gentle bulb and the water sensor that I’m hankering to do extra. I’ve already purchased an Aqara vibration sensor (extra on that coming subsequent submit) and I additionally ordered three extra T1 LED gentle bulbs and a movement sensor for the raise foyer space exterior our entrance door.
I’ll hold you posted on how that goes as soon as I get every part linked and arrange a circulate or two.
Why can’t I management the “heat” on the Aqara T1 gentle bulb?
This query bothers me.
Critically, do I simply not get it, or is that this a short-sighted enterprise determination on the a part of Aqara? Don’t get me flawed, up to now I like their merchandise, however why on Earth can’t I benefit from the full characteristic set until I’ve an Aqara hub?
That is unnecessary to me. I imply, absolutely they may expose the complete performance to third-party ecosystems like Homey in the event that they wished to, proper?
One concept I’ve is that Aqara desires folks to purchase their hubs as an alternative of third-party hubs. If that’s actually what’s taking place, I feel that’s short-sighted. I wager you if Aqara allowed third-party methods to have entry to the complete characteristic set of their merchandise the uplift in gross sales on their full vary of merchandise would greater than make up for some nominal loss in income from promoting fewer hubs.
However hey, perhaps I’m approach off the mark…
Subsequent time, I’ll let you understand what occurred once I connected my new vibration sensor to my front room desk in hopes that I might be capable of flip the complete desk right into a “gentle change”.
Spoiler, it didn’t actually work the way in which that I hoped that it would!
Till subsequent time, have a great one.
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Try the Homey Professional for your self:
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Aqara T1 water leak detector:
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