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Apple's Home Services Head Departs Company After Two Years

I have two classic HomePods, ATV, multiple computers/ipads, iPhone, and about ten things plugged in with nice little third party plugs. Everything is great. Until everything fails. I get the dreaded Siri complaining about things taking to long, one HomePod stops working with the other, HomeKit no longer sees my plugs, and the ATV won't play any sound at all. I love it when it works, I hate it when it doesn't. I end up having to do a full reset of everything about once every three months. Soooo frustrating. And the entire interface of the iPhone Home App is beyond miserable. Unbearable. I always dread having to use it.

Hopefully something improves. Anything.

PS. Where is my Apple Car?
 
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Onelifenofear said:
Nope. The whole point of Homekit and ANY home system is that it works with multiple vendors and protocols. They are one of the Founding memebers of Thread and Matter, along with Google, Amazon and hundreds of other companies.

MATTER will be the protocol in the future. If it's on the box it will work with any of the main smart home systems.

Thread is like zigbee on steroids - an IP mesh network.

For those of us that use it daily it works great, certainly better than some of the others. Ad now you can use Automator / Siri Shortcuts together there is very little you can't do.

Alexa and Google are SERVER based and require constant connection and no way are they listening in to everything I do. Homekit works on the Hub, and a lot of people have issue as they use an iPad or older Apple TV... and they are clunky. Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini are great hubs and I rarely have an issue.
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Agree. Just have more products that are HomeKit certified. I also use Starling Hub to connect my Nest Hello and thermostats to HomeKit. The rest of my setup is Lutron and Hue -- each has its own hub/bridge which makes everything sing. Garage doors have the Chamberlain/Liftmaster HomeKit bridge. Plus, I also have Google Home app setup as backup.

Love the automation and shortcuts!!

Matter is the future but until then...
 
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w5jck said:
Apple has no clear pathway defined for home space automation. They are years behind Amazon, Google, and others.
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Nope.
LOCAL PROCESSING - unlike Amzoggle or Smarthings.
easier to add and manage devices that Amazon ( not used Google so can't comment ) which is plain horrible.
Siri via external devices
Founding member of Matter / Thread
First to market with a Thread hub
Homekit secure video
Fast Processors unlike most other HA Systems.
Siri Shortcuts for custom commands
Automator for even more advanced commands + full scripting.

A big one for me - SEEMLESS handling of Multiple Hue hubs - Amazon / Google can't easily do 2 - you need multiple hue logins for each hub and even then they can't cross talk.
With HK you can use Hue Dimmers / motion sensors to do anything on your system including controlling lights on different hubs which even the stupid Hue app can't do.
oh and LOCAL PROCESSING!

What is lacking is the actual HOME app. It's ok for a smaller setup.. but if it's a bit bigger it becomes hared to get to things quickly. However, unlike they others they also have an Well documented API and there a dozens of apps that you can control homekit.
 
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babalougots said:
Agree. Just have more products that are HomeKit certified. I also use Starling Hub to connect my Nest Hello and thermostats to HomeKit. The rest of my setup is Lutron and Hue -- each has its own hub/bridge which makes everything sing. Garage doors have the Chamberlain/Liftmaster HomeKit bridge. Plus, I also have Google Home app setup as backup.

Love the automation and shortcuts!!

Matter is the future but until then...
Click to expand...

Well the idea is that EVERYTHING will be Matter then Homekit certification goes away ( well that is the Certification )

I will get a Starling. I have a load of the Smoke Alarms and a few cameras - I did know about them in the past, but completely forgot so thanks... my only concern is could Nest just kill access?
 
DocMultimedia said:
I have two classic HomePods, ATV, multiple computers/ipads, iPhone, and about ten things plugged in with nice little third party plugs. Everything is great. Until everything fails. I get the dreaded Siri complaining about things taking to long, one HomePod stops working with the other, HomeKit no longer sees my plugs, and the ATV won't play any sound at all. I love it when it works, I hate it when it doesn't. I end up having to do a full reset of everything about once every three months. Soooo frustrating. And the entire interface of the iPhone Home App is beyond miserable. Unbearable. I always dread having to use it.

Hopefully something improves. Anything.

PS. Where is my Apple Car?
Click to expand...
Posts like this make me feel very lucky. The biggest problem I have these days is when I adjust the volume on my stereo paired HomePods through ATV 4K there is a slight lag. All of my lighting automations, garage door openers, Nest stuff running through Starling…it all works perfectly.
 
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ForkHandles said:
Hey Siri turn the tv on
.
.
.
I’m working on that
.
.
.
I’ll be right with you .
.
.
.
It’s taking a little longer than I expected.

Aaargh!!!!!!
Click to expand...

You forgot the dreaded "Some of your devices are not responding."

Me: "Hey Siri, which device is not responding?"

"I can't do that."

HomeKit is such a cluster.
 
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Onelifenofear said:
Well the idea is that EVERYTHING will be Matter then Homekit certification goes away ( well that is the Certification )

I will get a Starling. I have a load of the Smoke Alarms and a few cameras - I did know about them in the past, but completely forgot so thanks... my only concern is could Nest just kill access?
Click to expand...
Don't think Google will kill access. The Starling Hub is flawless.
 
Shearwater said:
HomeKit & Siri...the " Land that time Forgot!"
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Siri I get... I mean it works for me all the time - but you do have to be more specific and it doesn't know as much as google/Alexa. But Homekit really is incredible now. The home app however is massively lacking in customisation.

I don't get why people think that it's remotely "behind" when all the important home automation stuff is way more advanced than Googlexa.
 
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I must say HomeKit is not that great at all. I tried to buy into the whole HomeKit feature but it's flakey at best. I'm not sure what Apple's issue is with this to be honest, I just can't help but feel like it's half baked most of the time. You think with the devs and expertise they have, they'd be able to **** all over the competition but alas, it tends to be very poor in my experience.
 
Rychiar said:
I don't see how a combo Apple TV/homepod would work... I want my Apple TV in my tv stand and speakers spread out around the room for surround...
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I’m guessing it’d be in the form of a combo AppleTV & soundbar, to go in front of / below the TV, with Homepod minis (or similar) for surrounds. Frankly, I think it’s not a great idea, as they have different upgrade schedules - I’d hate to have to replace my (front) speakers to upgrade my AppleTV. An Apple Home Theater HomePod, where it’s simply a “sound bar” format with front L/C/R speakers, I could get behind… except Apple waited way too long to try doing home theater sound (literally dipping their toe in with the last dying gasp of a cancelled speaker), so I went Sonos a couple years back. Great sound, “Just Works” (mostly), and it’s, you know, actually shopping, instead of just a rumor.

(Edit: typos)
 
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As someone who installs Control4 systems for a living I think HomeKit is decent and allows you to program automation that trigger from accessories and sensors pretty easily right on your phone. Obviously depends on what accessories you have in your house but even I still have a lot of things running on home even though I have an EA-5 in my server rack.
 
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MacRumors said:
Apple's plan to combine the HomePod and the Apple TV into one device as a single point of home control could turn things around, but we'll have to wait to see how the strategy pans out following the product's planned 2023 launch.
Click to expand...

Calling it a combo HomePod/Apple TV has everyone imagining a frankenstein device. It seems more likely to be a touch-screen Echo Show/Nest Hub competitor, with elements of tvOS incorporated into the anticipated homeOS.

I use all of the ecosystems, and Google's is a snooze – very limited in scope and imagination. Nice aesthetics, but my Nest Hubs serve as little more than digital picture frames. The Alexa ecosystem is by far the most versatile and fun to use, and Amazon constantly throws new ideas at the wall, but the experience is marred by the gentle spam of Alexa tips, not to mention Amazon's data collection practices and lax security.

Despite Amazon's massive user base, achieved with impossibly cheap devices, Apple hasn't lost this horse race. They just need to appeal to their own massive user base with homeOS. Amazon has shown us how cool a smart home can be. If Apple can create a visually exciting interface that makes their services feel more fun to use, and if Siri finally manages to integrate fully with third-party services like SiriusXM, iHeart, TuneIn, Spotify, and Hulu, there would be pent-up demand for Apple's privacy-minded take on the Echo experience. The clock faces alone could be nice enough to warrant a purchase for some Apple users who don't connect with the faceless HomePod mini or the redundant Apple TV set-top box.

The worst thing Apple could do is give this thing an app grid like Apple TV. I have to believe they won't.
 
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Apple’s efforts are pretty poor. I have some smart home equipment using Home, but others are forced to use HomeBridge, or controlled by Alexas (despite having Apple TV and a HomePod mini). And generally if I want to change my lights or heating, I use the Hue or Tado apps as they’re way easier to use. shortcuts can do some things but the interface is messy if you have more than few tasks.
If I want to perform tasks like switching off multiple things I use Alexa, because it can generally speak to everything, even though I don’t want Amazon stuff in the house really. It’s a mess really. I want cameras that use HomeKit secure video as its clearly a better service, but the choice (and price drops that would bring) and improvements just aren’t there. Hopefully the big companies agreeing on standards will help, but Apple should have been all over this years ago.
 
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Combined Apple TV & speakers is a BAD IDEA. I won't buy it. I may be contrarian, but I LOVED the original HomePod and would love to see it updated with a faster chip (A12 or better). The sound quality is amazing, and the mini just can't match it.

The Home app on iOS/iPadOS needs a complete overhaul. It's absolutely awful.

As for Apple TV, the UI/UX also needs a total overhaul, and even though the remote's just been redone, it *may* need it again.
 
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This is frickin hilarious! Somewhere within Apple, someone is making smart home such a low priority (and probably with little funding and perhaps even value for year end conversations), that its just not worth it. Meanwhile, Google is essentially downgrading the Nest line, and Amazon is gambling hard on Ring (though their builds are kinda meh).
 
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Hopefully this means Home and Homekit will get better. Home is the crappiest ecosystem to be in aside from all the others.
 
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