FAQ

Now. The companion app for your Homey is in the Homey App Store and the iPhone app is in the App Store. The Android app follows very soon.

Want to know right away when Android is here? Leave your email address on the homepage.

Yes. You can try Pro free for 30 days. You order it for your Homey, so it covers everyone in the house. To do that, first put the free Drivie companion on your Homey. The Android beta is still running. If you want to join, sign up through the contact form.

iOS and Android severely restrict how often an app can run in the background, so Drivie can't always update immediately.

Drivie therefore wakes up regularly to see what has changed, and then updates the app, the widgets and your car's screen. If you open Drivie on your phone, or pull the list down, everything is back in sync right away.

With Drivie Pro, your Homey nudges your widgets and the card on your lock screen itself as soon as a device shown there changes, so they update faster.

Yes. At home the app talks to your Homey directly. On the road it goes through the same Athom cloud as the Homey app. So it works anywhere, as long as both your phone and your Homey have internet.

Passing trips to your Homey, and starting flows when you start driving or get out, is part of Drivie Pro. So first check that Pro is active.

Drivie recognises a trip in two ways. With CarPlay or Android Auto, Drivie knows right away that you are in the car. Without them, your phone notices from your movement that you are driving. This is on by default, but the trip then sometimes starts a few minutes later.

iPhone: in Drivie, go to Settings → Permissions, turn on Motion & Fitness and set location to Always. Under Settings → Rides, turn on “Detect rides without CarPlay or the radio”. With CarPlay, Drivie notices the trip fastest when you open Drivie on the car screen or when sound plays through the car.

Android: allow Physical activity and set location to Always. Under Settings → Rides, turn on “Detect rides without Android Auto”.

If nothing happens still, open Drivie on your phone once. That lets the app keep watching in the background again.

Your phone usually notices the start of a trip quickly. The end sometimes comes later: once your car is parked, iOS and Android let Drivie rest in the background. Drivie then only notices the end when your phone wakes the app again, sometimes a few minutes later.

You can set how fast a trip ends under Settings → Rides. “End a ride after” sets how long your car has to stand still before the trip stops. “At one of your locations” applies when you arrive at home or another place of your own, and is usually shorter. Without Android Auto, Android always waits at least 2 minutes.

The trip log in the app shows the real end of the trip. Your Homey only gets the “A ride ended” message once your phone passes it on. Until then your phone in Homey still shows “Connected to car”. If a trip gets stuck because your phone is off or has no signal, the Ride safety net in the Drivie app on your Homey closes it by itself after a while.

Your devices, flows and locations stay between your phone and your Homey, over the same Athom connection the Homey app uses. You keep your favourites and settings in your own iCloud or Google Drive, if you have that turned on; we can't see them. Notifications go through our key service at Cloudflare to Apple (APNs) and Google (FCM), and your subscription runs through Paddle. To make sure notifications only reach your phones, that service keeps a hash of each push token, with the ID of your Homey and of your phone. A question through Need help? in the companion, or through the contact form on this site, is sent to my email address by the key service with Cloudflare Email Routing, and it keeps nothing of it. If you sign in with Homey on this site to order Pro, we only use that to link Pro to your Homey, and we don't keep your login. This website measures visits without cookies, with Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights. We also count a few clicks as anonymous events, such as switching language, opening a question in the FAQ or starting an order. We only send what you did and where, never your name, email address or other personal data. Beyond that Drivie shares nothing: no advertising, no resale. If you sign up on this site for news, your email address is kept in a separate database at Cloudflare, within the EU. See the privacy & legal page for details.

For your safety, Drivie always shows a confirmation prompt before controlling a lock, garage door or the alarm, on both CarPlay and Android Auto. This is intentional and can't be turned off. Drivie recognises such a device by what Homey reports about it. If, say, a socket drives your gate or door, set that device in the Homey app to be a garage door or lock, and Drivie will ask for confirmation there too. In the car, a flow or mood does not ask for confirmation, not even when it opens your garage. If you do want that, control the device itself instead of a flow.

While driving, Drivie keeps to quick actions: turning something on or off, starting a flow or mood, or a one-tap action, such as sending a robot vacuum back to its dock. Locks, alarms and garage doors ask for confirmation first.

Dimming lights or adjusting volume or the thermostat is deliberately not available in the car. Google forbids that kind of fine-grained control in Android Auto while driving, and Apple only allows tasks in CarPlay that help with the drive. Do it in the Drivie app on your phone once you're stopped.

Usually within seconds. As soon as Paddle confirms a purchase, renewal or cancellation, your Homey gets a nudge and checks your subscription right away. You don't need to open anything. If that nudge is missed on the way, for example because your Homey was briefly offline, it checks again at its daily check.

Your phones then hear about it from your Homey. With the latest version of the app you get the notification “Drivie Pro is active”, if notifications for Drivie are turned on.

Don't want to wait? Open the Drivie app on your Homey, go to the Subscription tab and tap the circle with the arrow (Refresh status).

With Drivie Pro, the app uses your phone's location. Home is already there, at the spot of your Homey. Other places, such as work or school, you add yourself in the app under Locations. Your phone notices on its own when you arrive somewhere or leave, and your Homey is told. That way you can start flows: lights on when you come home, heating down when you leave. This also works across all phones on your Homey, with the cards “The first phone arrives at a location…” and “The last phone leaves a location…”. A phone counts as long as it is inside the location, also while driving.

Without CarPlay or Android Auto, your phone recognises a trip from how you move. On a train, bus or tram, that feels the same to your phone as driving. If you often use public transport, turn this switch off:

iPhone: Settings → Rides → “Detect rides without CarPlay or the radio”.

Android: Settings → Rides → “Detect rides without Android Auto”.

Trips with CarPlay or Android Auto keep working afterwards. If your car has no CarPlay or Android Auto, Drivie no longer recognises your car trips with the switch off.

Yes, with Drivie Pro. On your Apple Watch you see the buttons of the location you are at, just like in the widget. Wear OS comes with the Android app, which follows very soon. Your watch talks to your phone for this, so keep your phone nearby.

Check that your iPhone is actually connected to CarPlay (cable or wireless) and that your car supports it.

On your iPhone, go to Settings > General > CarPlay > [your car] > Customize. If Drivie is listed under More Apps, tap the plus next to it. The change shows the next time you connect to CarPlay.

Open Drivie on your iPhone at least once before connecting, so it can load your Homey and your favourites.

Empty tabs / "No favourites yet": open Drivie on your iPhone and choose which devices, flows and moods should appear in each CarPlay tab.

Favourites missing: CarPlay can shorten long lists, and how many items you see differs per car. So pick your most important favourites. CarPlay itself is part of Standard and works without a subscription. Notifications from your Homey on the car screen and the Drivie widget on the CarPlay dashboard are part of Pro.

Widgets are set up on your iPhone, not in the car. When you are not driving, go to Settings > General > CarPlay > [your car] > Widgets and tap Add Widgets. In CarPlay the widgets sit to the left of the Dashboard; how many fit depends on your car's screen.

The widget shows the buttons of the location you last arrived at. You pick those buttons in Drivie under Locations: tap a location and choose up to 3. While you drive, the widget shows the buttons of On the road, if you have set those up.

The widget is part of Drivie Pro. Without Pro it stays empty.

The card on your lock screen is informational only in CarPlay: Apple doesn't allow buttons there. The widget responds to touch only in cars with a touchscreen; with a rotary knob or touchpad you can't operate it. Use the Drivie app in CarPlay instead.

This is usually because your phone lets Drivie rest in the background (see My devices aren't updating). It corrects itself shortly, or immediately if you open Drivie on your iPhone. If it stays wrong for a while, check that your Homey is online and your iPhone has an internet or mobile-data connection. If Drivie can't reach your Homey at all, it shows the last known status instead of nothing.

Check that the Android Auto app itself is up to date (via Google Play), your phone is connected to your car (cable or wireless), and Android Auto is already set up for that car.

Smart-home apps like Drivie show up in Android Auto's app launcher rather than as a dashboard tile. Check there first if you don't see it right away.

If you just installed or updated Drivie, disconnecting and reconnecting (or restarting Android Auto) sometimes helps it register.

Some phones, such as Samsung's, temporarily disable apps you haven't used in a while to save battery; those don't show up in Android Auto. Open Drivie once on your phone, and turn off disabling or sleeping unused apps in your battery settings.

"Log in required": once you are parked, open Drivie on your phone, sign in, then reconnect to your car.

"No favourites yet": open Drivie on your phone and choose which devices, flows and moods should show up in the car.

Yes. Android Auto is part of Standard and free: you control your flows, devices and moods without a subscription. Notifications from your Homey on the car screen are part of Pro. You order Pro at getdrivie.com/pro by signing in with your Homey account, or in the Drivie app on your Homey. You can't do that from the car screen.

This is usually because your phone lets Drivie rest in the background (see My devices aren't updating). It corrects itself shortly, or immediately if you open Drivie on your phone. If it stays wrong for a while, check that your Homey and phone are both online. If Drivie can't reach your Homey at all, it shows the last known status instead of nothing.