HomeKit & Nest

With Google going down their own road of home automation (Google Home), I think it's unlikely that any of their products (like Nest) would support Apple's HomeKit.

 

I'd love to have our Dropcams work with HomeKit, but as aristocrat said above, I don't see it happening anytime soon. I still hope someone figures something out.

 

It works with Amazon's Echo, it seems more like it's on Apple's end but nobody really knows from what I can tell.

 

IIRC, Apple requires that HomeKit compatible units have an extra co-processor in them. IMO, that's what prevents most existing stuff from working with it.

 

There's a few workarounds but they're pretty involved.

 

I think I'd rather move from Nest to EVO or whatever it is at that point

 

I initially had the same thought, with other items that didn't work with Siri as well. In the end, I figured I spent several hundred on things that aren't compatible and seeing Apple make no movement to adopt I just gave up on it. As for the Nest, it does work with the Amazon Echo but the language is strict enough that I don't care to remember it and I end up just using the app anyway.

 

I just use "Alexa, set the thermostat to 73" and it works just fine. I can also use "turn up the thermostat" or "turn down the thermostat."
Doesn't seem to require much specific language. You do have to specify the name of the thermostat, since you may have more than one. I only have one in my house and I named it "thermostat" to make life easy.

 

Yeah, it's always remembering the name that gets me. Good call renaming it, takes the guess work out of it.