I'd personally love to have a smoke alarm that I could monitor from afar. It'd be good for the peace of mind!
A lot of this is already out there and available. I'm in the middle of a home automation project using the Insteon line of products controlled by a central WIFI enabled hub and managed via iOS (iPhone and iPad). Exterior lights on/off at sunset and sunrise or on demand via the app, interior lighting controlled by schedule or on demand via the app, lighting on/off with wifi motion sensors (REALLY nice in the middle of the night when the need to hit the bathroom comes around at 2 A.M, no stumbling around), garage door control, wifi cameras, thermostat, leak detection, etc.
Fairly inexpensive, which is a huge plus.
a few people here claimed that apple TV does not bring anything new to home automation since this tech already exists.
well, smart phone already existed long before Apple released original iphone. Same as music player, tablet, etc.
I owned Nest, Chamberlain Smart garage door opener, and Rachio irrigation Controller. I loved these smarthome products but one thing I am worried is the cloud that hosts data and communication between iphone and these devices. Each product has their own cloud server. I don't trust these clouds and their longevity (since these are small start-up companies). Moreover, there is no central hub to integrate these devices seamlessly. For example, I open garage door, and Nest turns on automatically.
Each of smarthome products use their own proprietary tech. this creates fragmentation as existing smarthome tech has been for last decade. This requires geeko setup or professional installation that costs thousands.
I am waiting for Apple TV to be the hub with apple cloud hosting data/communication for these devices. I prefer to have apple maintain my data. Plus I bet that apple cloud would stay in the market longer that those small smarthome start-ups.
"Earl Grey. Hot."
I can't imagine using anTV to manage homekit or the connected devices, at least in its current iteration.
I remember my brother had on-screen notifications through his cable provider of some home automation stuff, it was odd and annoying.
"...adjust thermostat, turn off lights, close garage door from your apple TV in your living room..."
iLazy!
HomeKit is backwards compatible with X10 devices right?
I understand the thought, but here's another perspective:
How would you like to go out to the wood pile, chop some wood, bring it in, start a fire, then wait until the house heats up. While you are doing that, get the kerosene, put it in the lamps, and light it up, then take the wagon to town, and when you get back get out to put the horses in the barn, and then manually close the door?
The point isn't to mock you, but to people back in the early 1900's, we're the lazy ones. We drive to our house, push the button for the garage door, then flip on a light switch, then set the thermostat manually.
All of this saves us about 2-3 hours a day, and makes our lives safer and cleaner.
The home automation is just the next step in this process.
Think of all the places where this can take off... Sprinklers that monitor the weather, then water the lawn appropriately. Thermostats that monitor the outdoor temperature, then open and close windows as needed. Predictive thermostats and ducts that heat/cool the room that you are in, as well as the one that you will be in.
Most people use 4 rooms in their houses: Bedroom, kitchen, living room, and the bathroom. Why do we need to heat/cool the rest of the house if it's not needed?
We are at the dawn of this.
Not just the 1900's. How about having to actually get up from the couch to change the channel on the TV? Or having to go all the way down to the library, and have to sort through the card catalog to find a book to read? Or the painful writing of a check, putting a stamp on an envelope and driving out to the post office to pay a bill? Man those were some hard times.
These are great ideas in principle, however they are just far too expensive.
I'd love to have all this stuff to manage it from my phone iPhone so I can have the heating on ready for when I get home, and look at how many energy is used and monitor it, however in the case of monitoring energy use I'm pretty sure it would a few years for the benefit savings to out number the initial cost.
As for this coming to the Apple TV, well if it is and it's so it can be managed through the TV itself and not an iDevice or Mac then surely it indicates that an App store for the Apple TV is coming soon.
These are great ideas in principle, however they are just far too expensive.
I'd love to have all this stuff to manage it from my phone iPhone so I can have the heating on ready for when I get home, and look at how many energy is used and monitor it, however in the case of monitoring energy use I'm pretty sure it would a few years for the benefit savings to out number the initial cost.
As for this coming to the Apple TV, well if it is and it's so it can be managed through the TV itself and not an iDevice or Mac then surely it indicates that an App store for the Apple TV is coming soon.
Which is now owned by Google :l