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This suddenly makes my HomePod Mini a lot more useful. I remember 8 years ago I could tell my Xbox One to pause or play video, so it’s kinda sad it took them this long. Doubt it will work consistently though if it’s anything like the rest of HomeKit.
I've always been able to tell my HomePod, "Hey Siri, pause the Apple TV."
 
They already had it in the last keynote but with another car in the garage (it was an Audi there).
But yeah, they literally built an open house for their keynotes…crazy.
I just assumed it was mostly special effects on a sound stage & green screen.
 
Hopefully the voice recognition will finally work with more than one language. Currently it is a pita for multi-language households. Fingers crossed…
you might need to cross them for some time - in German it can't even cope with English Songtitles but tries to match that against German with unexpected results.
Also Dictation is incapable of recognizing different languages - I guess Apple is not supporting polyglotism ...
 
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Your Sonos one already does that.... with your choice of Alexa or Google Assistant. They didn't really highlight well that the matter standard basically ends the home kit walled garden. You'll be able to mix Siri with Alexa and Google to control pretty much everything going forward.
I, too, want Siri on my Sonos gear - yes, the Arc can do Alexa or Google Assistant, but I'm not willing to let either of them listen inside my home 24/7 (while I'm more open to letting Siri listen), so I have voice control on my Sonos speakers turned off.

(Amazon and Google both have business models that make collection of data about users highly interesting to them, while Apple's business model leans heavily on protecting user privacy - they make it a selling point, and they'd lose a huge amount of reputation, and actual money, if they were found to be doing something creepy with user information.)

So, yeah, I'd love to get Siri running on my Sonos speakers, and neither Alexa nor Google Assistant are an acceptable substitute.
 
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I am missing new device types like

  • Lawm Mower Robots
  • Vacuum clear Robots
and features like
  • Cameras that have PTZ (pan/tilt/zoom) and can be controlled via HomeKit
  • A time scale with all recording of all cameras
  • Grouping of same devices in different rooms e.g. all blinds or all lights on the first floor
 
the big question... WHEN will we see all companies releasing "Matter" compatible devices and will the Matter protocol be backward compatible with devices we already own?
Depends on the device. Hue has already announced their current gear will support it.
 
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That was wildly disappointing from a smart home perspective. I hope theres some nice little changes to the Home app that they just didn't talk about.
 
That was wildly disappointing from a smart home perspective. I hope theres some nice little changes to the Home app that they just didn't talk about.
Matter matters massively though. Not that exiting just yet (since it's not launched yet), but when everything is Matter it's gonna be so nice to not need all the stupid hubs, logins and apps, and everything will be compatible.
 
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the big question... WHEN will we see all companies releasing "Matter" compatible devices and will the Matter protocol be backward compatible with devices we already own?

Depends on the device. Hue has already announced their current gear will support it.
I know SmartThings announced support for Matter. They didn’t get into much detail, but the blog post said old and new customers will be able to use SmartThings for automations. If that means my SmartThings hub will talk to HomeKit without need for homebridge I hope, but who knows at this point.


Edit: It does read that any matter device will be able to interact with currently supported SmartThings devices. So hopefully it will work both ways.
 
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I can't wait to have more non-homekit devices WITHOUT the need for their hubs!
The HomeKit pickings have been slim at best
 
Sigh...

So from my iOS 15 Wishlist which was created when iOS 14 was announced we still have outstanding;

  1. Timers! Any “On”function for a switch or scene should have the ability to have an auto off timer. For example I should be able to HOLD on a light switch or power plug and choose On for 5, 15, 30, 60 minutes or turn off in X,Y,Z.
  2. Alerts! I want the option for both push notifications and HomePod audio announcements for a defined event. For example, if the garage door has been left open for more than 10 minutes I want it to alert me. Or if I’ve left the heater on for 2 hours, the front door unlocked etc.
  3. People Presence! Would be nice if it showed a thumbnail of each family member who is home and a time log of when they left/arrived.
  4. Sensor Logs! Sensors such as temperature should be logged automatically in iCloud based storage. Using something like the Eve app is rubbish because it only downloads the information when you open up the app and open the graph for the device. Logs should be included in the HomeKit framework and log the data in real time.
  5. Apple TV automatons. I want to be able to switch the TV on/off on arriving/leaving home.
  6. More product category’s like robot vacs, white goods etc.
  7. Home Guest Access permissions! Auto expire access for a friend to unlock your front door or control lights etc.
  8. Limit family member access! Allocate what your children can control. E.g. they can control their bedroom lights, fans. But they can’t open the garage door or control their siblings bedrooms.
  9. Pet detection for IP cameras!
  10. Increased limit of HSV cameras from 5 to 10! Or at least offer a paid option for more. (Now with iCloud 2TB plans)
  11. Home app room wallpaper sync!
  12. Apples Home app needs to support all the features that the HomeKit spec supports. Mainly around automations. Sensor based triggers are hugely lacking. For example, temperature based triggers.
  13. MacOS as a HomeKit Hub (Should be off by default) There are plenty of people running Mac Minis as download and media servers that are on 24/7. a HomeKit hub role would be ideal.
  14. Intercom - HomePod to HomePod intercom like Google and Amazon’s smart speaker implementation. (Came with launch of HomePod Mini YAY)
  15. Room Presence - Use of Apples U1 chips in iPhones and future Apple Watch models. These could use new HomePods with U1 and 3rd party UWB Sensors for room presence detection.
 
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I am missing new device types like

  • Lawm Mower Robots
  • Vacuum clear Robots
and features like
  • Cameras that have PTZ (pan/tilt/zoom) and can be controlled via HomeKit
  • A time scale with all recording of all cameras
  • Grouping of same devices in different rooms e.g. all blinds or all lights on the first floor

The last bullet about grouping - can’t you do that already with the room zones? For example I have my dining room, living room, and kitchen all set to the ‘main’ zone of my apartment. So I can say ‘hey Siri, turn off the main lights’ and it turns off all three rooms. Same with the back of the apartment ‘hey Siri, turn off the back lights’.

Can you group all your main floor rooms into a zone and then just say ‘hey Siri, lower all the main floor blinds’?
 
Please tell me they finally added timed gradual transitions for lights! lol I want to be able to gradually change brightness and colour without using a third party app.
 
Matter matters massively though. Not that exiting just yet (since it's not launched yet), but when everything is Matter it's gonna be so nice to not need all the stupid hubs, logins and apps, and everything will be compatible.
To me that’ll be nice, but it’s super low priority to me. All my stuff is already setup properly. Theres a ton of low hanging fruit for them in the Home app, hoping when more info starts coming out it shows some changes.
 
the big question... WHEN will we see all companies releasing "Matter" compatible devices and will the Matter protocol be backward compatible with devices we already own?
For Hue — yes, it will. Signify has already made that clear. All existing and future Hue products will support Matter. I’m not aware of any other definite statements.
 
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