HomeKit Apple Watch Question

[DaveWil]

I have an Apple Watch 4. I use Siri to unlock my door with voice commands and that works great but in order for it to work I have to turn off Siri on my iPhone 14 because otherwise the iPhone will tell me it needs to be unlocked to open the door. Does this work better on the newer Apple Watches? I would think Apple could have the phone and watch communicate when they both hear an open door request and if they both hear it and at least one device is unlocked it would be safe to unlock the door.

 

[erihp]

I have an Apple Watch 4. I use Siri to unlock my door with voice commands and that works great but in order for it to work I have to turn off Siri on my iPhone 14 because otherwise the iPhone will tell me it needs to be unlocked to open the door. Does this work better on the newer Apple Watches? I would think Apple could have the phone and watch communicate when they both hear an open door request and if they both hear it and at least one device is unlocked it would be safe to unlock the door.

They only other way I know of is to use a dummy button, activate that instead, and have an automation or shortcut also unlock the door when the dunny switch toggles. Or use something like Home Assistant or Homebridge and have an an automation that has HA or HB toggle it..

It's pretty silly, but they want to make sure you dont accidentally or unintentionally open your door/garage.

Didnt know about the turning off Siri trick, not sure I fully understand why that works.


Solutions other than HB/HA/Dummy switches:

You could look into building a standalone HomeKey reader. https://github.com/rednblkx/HomeKey-ESP32

Enable proximity auto unlock, you may still need to confirm, cant remember.

Use the manufacturer's auto-unlock solution, sometimes this can be integrated with HA/HB depending on the lock type.

 

[DaveWil]

They only other way I know of is to use a dummy button, activate that instead, and have an automation or shortcut also unlock the door when the dunny switch toggles. Or use something like Home Assistant or Homebridge.

It's pretty silly, but they want to make sure you dont accidentally or unintentionally open your door/garage.

Didnt know about the turning off Siri trick, not sure I fully understand why that works.

I think it works because the watch is an unlocked device so that makes it ok to unlock doors. It is the same as on the iPhone where if the phone is unlocked it can unlock doors

 

[erihp]

I think it works because the watch is an unlocked device so that makes it ok to unlock doors. It is the same as on the iPhone where if the phone is unlocked it can unlock doors

Ah yes, you have your watch auto locked, got it.

I cant do that with my Pocket Watch. Though, I really havent tried much to trick the sensor......