Elgato Launches First HomeKit-Enabled Light Switch

[MacRumors]

Elgato today launched the Eve Light Switch, the first available light switch to support Apple's HomeKit platform.

Eve Light Switch replaces a standard light switch to transform any single or multi-bulb setup into an intelligent lighting system controllable via Siri voice commands or the Elgato Eve app. The switch connects directly to an iPhone or iPad using Bluetooth LE, without the need for a hub, gateway bridge, or Wi-Fi configuration.

The switch has a clean, white modern design with a capacitive touch sensor to manually turn a light on or off with the tap of a finger. The switch requires a neutral wire and replaces a single pole switch. It is not intended for use in a 3-way installation where lights are controlled by more than one switch.

Homeowners can create HomeKit scenes to control Eve Light Switch and other HomeKit-enabled accessories with a single command. The light switch can also be controlled away from home with a third-generation Apple TV running software version 7.2.1 or later or a fourth-generation Apple TV with tvOS 9.2 or later set up as a Home Hub.

iDevices introduced a similar HomeKit-enabled wall switch at CES 2016 earlier this year, and had aimed for second quarter availability, but it has since delayed the product's launch until the fourth quarter. The switch will connect over Wi-Fi and features a customizable LED night light and support for 3-way installations.

Eve Light Switch is available starting today for $49.95 on Amazon and Elgato's website. The companion Eve app is a free download from the App Store [Direct Link] for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models running iOS 9.3 or later.

Article Link: Elgato Launches First HomeKit-Enabled Light Switch

 

[BigCLC]

There are already two different homekit compatible light switches on the market, one made by lutron and the other by insteon. Both have been available for atleast a year...

 

[Zorn]

Why pay $50 for this light switch and still buy separate bulbs, when you can just buy something like the Philips Hue bulbs, which gets you a good LED bulb that has Homekit compatibility and full RGB control?

 

[thelead]

Why pay $50 for this light switch and still buy separate bulbs, when you can just buy something like the Philips Hue bulbs, which gets you a good LED bulb that has Homekit compatibility and full RGB control?

Fixtures that use bulbs that Philips does not make. Plus there are switches that control multiple ceiling lights. It's much cheaper to buy one switch than multiple smart bulbs.

 

[Madmic23]

Why pay $50 for this light switch and still buy separate bulbs, when you can just buy something like the Philips Hue bulbs, which gets you a good LED bulb that has Homekit compatibility and full RGB control?

Because a switch can operate a light fixture with multiple bulbs. If your fixture has three bulbs, Hue would cost you $150 for bulbs, whereas this is just $50.

 

[MarioG]

Omg finally i want it asap. No need for new lightbulbs, way cheaper and Hue led seem to dark to me.

 

[aristobrat]

There are already two different homekit compatible light switches on the market, one made by lutron and the other by insteon. Both have been available for atleast a year...

IMO, this one is interesting because it natively speaks HomeKit (something that the Insteon and Lutron switches don't), so you don't need an additional hub (in addition to an AppleTV4 or iPad) to automate it.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Why pay $50 for this light switch and still buy separate bulbs, when you can just buy something like the Philips Hue bulbs, which gets you a good LED bulb that has Homekit compatibility and full RGB control?

I have Hue, love it, but it's lineup of bulbs is shallow -- mostly in the 60w range. I have a lot of cans in my house that need 90-100w equivalent, so these lightswitches are more versitle. Hue's main allure I think is the mood setting. But for basic lighting it fails. As the Hue system is now I could never expand it outside my bedroom + one living room lamp that is geofenced to turn on a dark when I arrive home.

 

[adamjackson]

In my place, we're going 100% standard fixtures so Hue it is. if I were to do a light-strip w/ small bulbs or outdoor halogen, this switch does make sense.

 

[Recognition]

Why pay $50 for this light switch and still buy separate bulbs, when you can just buy something like the Philips Hue bulbs, which gets you a good LED bulb that has Homekit compatibility and full RGB control?

We have two light fittings that have 5 bulbs in each. It would be pretty expensive to replace all 10 bulbs with Hue led bulbs!

 

[Shanesan]

There are already two different homekit compatible light switches on the market, one made by lutron and the other by insteon. Both have been available for atleast a year...

Being HomeKit compatible and being "Oh yeah Homekit, we do that, through a series of hubs you stuff in your closet" are two very different things.

iDevices will be deploying theirs around Q1, so we'll see how they compete with Elgato. I don't consider Lutron or Insteon comparable. Hubs don't = HomeKit.

 

[knemonic]

Wait, if it's Bluetooth le, and you're not home, how are you able to control it when you're not home? It doesn't mention that it connects to the atv over Bluetooth, it says it connects to your phone or iPad over Bluetooth. I for one am not buying an iPad to leave it laying around the house (within 30 feet of the switch) to be able to control it when not home. I'll take a $50 hub that is HomeKit compatible like Hue thank you very much. And Hue's ecosystem, albeit tight, is extremely responsive and dependable, something as dependable as lights over blutooth seems like a bad idea.

Also, for all of those using this where you have fixtures that don't accommodate Hue bulbs, or they're not bright enough, a lot of basic light switches in rooms like a dining or kitchen don't have neutral wires (old code would just have a hot wire coming into a gang box, and then a second wire that goes to the light, and the switch is simply in the middle). Depending on where you live, neutral wires didn't become code till much later the 70s is my guess depending on your city. My house for example has no neutral wires in first floor bedrooms, dinning and kitchen. A lot of people are gonna buy this thinking it's a simple solution and will be pissed when they find they don't work.

Also, why is it so hard to make a switch without a neutral wire? There are companies that do so it really limits who can use these switches.

And last, the Hue dimmer switch is $25 and works fine anywhere in the house, and takes seconds to install. And it's removable, and has dedicated dimmer buttons, and it's intuitive.

 

[thisisnotmyname]

There are already two different homekit compatible light switches on the market, one made by lutron and the other by insteon. Both have been available for atleast a year...

Came to say this, Lutron switches have been out for sometime and work with HomeKit.

 

[dwaltwhit]

this solves my kitchen light issue. Its a fluorescent (long tube) type light fixture.

 

[knemonic]

Came to say this, Lutron switches have been out for sometime and work with HomeKit.

I've heard that hub is riddled with issues and doesn't support half of the devices the original hub does.

 

[Shanesan]

Wait, if it's Bluetooth le, and you're not home, how are you able to control it when you're not home? It doesn't mention that it connects to the atv over Bluetooth, it says it connects to your phone or iPad over Bluetooth. I for one am not buying an iPad to leave it laying around the house (within 30 feet of the switch) to be able to control it when not home.

iOS10 and tvOS10 support all HomeKit connections routed through Apple TV as that's in the design documents to be HomeKit compatible when you don't require a hub (like other, lesser switches). So if you have an Apple TV (4th Gen), it works, same as iPad, same as iPhone.

 

[aristobrat]

Also, why is it so hard to make a switch without a neutral wire? There are companies that do so it really limits who can use these switches.

Because the switch itself needs power 24/7 to keep the electronics in it running. AFAIK, that's not possible in a true switch that doesn't contain a neutral wire... Without a neutral wire, when you turn the switch off, it kills the power to everything, including the switch.

Switches that work without a neutral wire aren't technically switches -- they're dimmers. When you turn them off, they don't turn all the way off -- they leave some electricity running through them to keep the smart switch powered. This little bit of electricity flowing through them can cause problems with some lights/accessories/etc, which is why I think companies limit what they support these 'switches' controlling.
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I've heard that hub is riddled with issues and doesn't support half of the devices the original hub does.

AFAIK, HomeKit itself needs to support a device before the hub can. For example, if HomeKit doesn't have support for water sensors, then a vendors HomeKit-hub can't properly support water sensors, even if their original (non-HomeKit) hub can. I think this is a big reason why HomeKit hubs don't support all of a companies sensors.

 

[CrzyP]

The price is better than Lutron, but I'm concerned about the Bluetooth range. My Apple TV is not centrally located in my home but my Lutron bridge is. Hopefully with the introduction of these switches, Lutron will drop the prices of theirs. Also, by sticking with Lutron, we're not tied to the HomeKit ecosystem.

 

[convergent]

The biggest problem I can see with this is that they need to have multi-switch versions. In my house, most if not all of the lights I would want to automate are on 3-4 switch panels. If they do it, hopefully it also won't be linear priced. I would hate to pay $200 for a switch!

All of that said, I have been wanting to delve into HomeKit, particularly to be able to have the house look like someone is here when we are away. This seems like an inexpensive and simple way to stick a toe in the water.

 

[knemonic]

iOS10 and tvOS10 support all HomeKit connections routed through Apple TV as that's in the design documents to be HomeKit compatible when you don't require a hub (like other, lesser switches). So if you have an Apple TV (4th Gen), it works, same as iPad, same as iPhone.

Sorry, I'm not seeing how this works. Their site claims if you have an Apple TV that you can control it from outside your home. This would imply that it connects to the atv over bluetooth which means it would need to be paired to the atv. On top of that, Bluetooth is crap when it comes to walls and most people only have one atv so if the switch has one maybe two walls between it and the atv, I bet it won't be very dependable when trying to turn the lights off when not at home. Now try adding a switch on different floors or across the house, Bluetooth is dead in those scenarios.

Bluetooth is great tech, but it's not great at distance. I'll take zigbee any day, small packets and daisy chaining make it a very suitable tech for situations like this.

 

[aristobrat]

Bluetooth is dead in those scenarios.

z-wave is usually dead in those scenarios too. I don't know of any wireless tech that has perfect range.

Seems like a lot of wireless HA devices (Insteon/z-wave/etc) also act as repeaters, rebroadcasting whatever they hear, effectively increasing the range.

Wonder if these devices will do the same?

 

[knemonic]

The biggest problem I can see with this is that they need to have multi-switch versions. In my house, most if not all of the lights I would want to automate are on 3-4 switch panels. If they do it, hopefully it also won't be linear priced. I would hate to pay $200 for a switch!

All of that said, I have been wanting to delve into HomeKit, particularly to be able to have the house look like someone is here when we are away. This seems like an inexpensive and simple way to stick a toe in the water.

When I went hue, I removed all of my manual light switches, connected the hot and switch wire leads together (so the fixtures were always on, leaving the on/off ability to the bulb not a wall switch), and put blank covers over the gang boxes, and where I deemed a switch nessecary, I either put a tap or dimmer switch over the cover. In a lot of cases, you really don't need that many switches in a house because a lot of times when you turn on one switch, you likely turn on other lights with it (for example, my dinning and living room I always turn on at the same time) Hue solved that for me with either the tap turning on multiple rooms or having multiple setups on each button or for a single room the dimmer switch worked great.

And the beauty is if I don't like something, it's a simple software change in the Hue app if I don't like the switch configurations, not requiring me to change switches in gang boxes to achieve a different setup. I like the flexibility of that, which reduces work overall.

 

[aristobrat]

This would imply that it connects to the atv over bluetooth which means it would need to be paired to the atv.

It'll need to have some association with the AppleTV. I don't think it'd be the typical "Bluetooth pairing process" that most everyone here has gone through before, though. Kind of like how the AirPods "automatically pair" is how I'd guess these devices would do their association.

[doublepost=1477497413][/doublepost]

And the beauty is if I don't like something, it's a simple software change in the Hue app if I don't like the switch configurations, not requiring me to change switches in gang boxes to achieve a different setup. I like the flexibility of that, which reduces work overall.

That's a good setup, if the switches you're wanting to automate only control lights, and you're good with the HUE bulb choices.

 

[knemonic]

I don't know of any wireless tech that has perfect range.

Seems like a lot of wireless devices (Insteon/z-wave/etc) also act as repeaters, rebroadcasting whatever they hear, effectively increasing the range.

Wonder if these devices will do the same?

I doubt that. I don't think I've ever heard of Bluetooth having a daisy chain ability and I don't think it's included in their specs (unless that changed in the LE version). I Elgato did implement something, its proprietary. I'd rather stick with zigbee which has been proven a dependable protocol when it comes to distance. Even zwave works great as well, but that would require a hub in both cases.

Personally, I'd rather have a well priced hub and cheaper switches, so the burden of cost isn't in each device, because it's more expensive to put Bluetooth or wifi in every switch, instead of having a zigbee hub and the switches would be more reasonably price ($50 Hue hub with 10 $25 dimmer switches is less costly than 10 $50 switches).

Also zwave has substantially more range (I think 200 ft) than Bluetooth (30ft).

 

[profets]

Why pay $50 for this light switch and still buy separate bulbs, when you can just buy something like the Philips Hue bulbs, which gets you a good LED bulb that has Homekit compatibility and full RGB control?

Also because, Hue only makes so many types of bulbs. I have many types in my house that Hue doesn't offer.