Home Homekit Siri Activated Power Outlet: Best / Future Proof?

[whyrichard]

Hey,

I am going to begin dabbling in Homekit for my home studio, and I was wondering which was the most reliable, future proof, expandable piece of hardware that works with Homekit and Siri.

What is currently the best? It seems there are so many flakey hardware manafacturers I don't know how to best compare. Initially it would be to control a set of electrical plugs (powering various lights), and ideally I could configure specific combinations, but at the very least it would control a simple plug on and off reliably using Siri.

Thank you for your suggestions!
r.

 

[Itinj24]

The whole HomeKit platform isn’t stable. Needs a lot of work. (As I type this, I’m getting notifications for my motion sensors that I have set to only notify me when nobody is home and I couldn’t be any more home than I am now lol)

Anyway, I use the Wemo Mini. It has nice horizontally biased design which allows for stacking on a dual top/bottom outlet configuration. I would recommend getting the one with native HomeKit support (newer version). The old ones require the Wemo app.

Satechi recently released a dual outlet on one device that got decent reviews. Can’t comment on them, but been meaning to pick up a few. Rather pricey but you’re getting two outlets in one package.

 

[cynics]

I can't say HomeKit has been 100% reliable but in my usage its been very close. You remember the 1 or 2 problems and forget about the years of problem free operation.

I have an iHome outlet I use for a heater in an exterior utility room. It's worked great.

https://www.amazon.com/iHome-contro...ihome+outlet&qid=1565342189&s=gateway&sr=8-12

There maybe better products out there but this is the only one I've tried.

 

[dotme]

I'll second the iHome outlet products - I own several indoor and 3 outdoor outlets and they've been solid as a rock. I've had some for 2+ years and they've been great.

Keep in mind most WiFi smart devices don't care for 5GHz WiFi - So I think a good 2.4GHz WiFi network is important to have reliable performance. I run Apple Airport routers with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi running, same SSID on both bands, and have no issues.