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How to Use the Temperature and Humidity Sensors on HomePod and HomePod Mini
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Restarting should do it, as Apple states on the website:"...HomePod requires some time to calibrate the sensor immediately after starting up..."
Very easy to use. Glad to see the sensors active on HomePod mini.
Would be really awesome if HomePod can control my AC via IR Blaster so it maintains 23.5c
I have zero interest in a wifi-based AC as I do not want to end up paying a small fortune for a faulty wifi part for HVAC that should be replaced every 1-2 decades.
I have zero interest in a wifi-based AC as I do not want to end up paying a small fortune for a faulty wifi part for HVAC that should be replaced every 1-2 decades.
I have 4 mini’s, 2 are in rooms by themselves and 2 are one a stereo pair. Two calibrated on their own after several minutes and I got temperature and humidity readings on both. The others seemed to get stuck on calibrating so I restarted them from the Home app and both calibrated and provided readings after a few minutes. They might have all worked eventually but I got inpatient. I don’t know how long it took the first two to start finish calibrating. I wasn’t paying attention after I started installing 6.3 on those two.
There are plenty of options. I am using this:
The accompanying app is quite powerful. Together with the sensor and IR capabilities, it will turn your conventional aircon into a really decent smart Aircon.
Do you find that surprising? If the HomePods aren't sitting right next to each other, they could very well have different readings.
I've got three temperature sensors in my living room - one that's part of the weather station that I built years ago, which is high up on a shelf, one's an Eve sensor on the living room desk, and now a third in my HomePod mini. They often read slightly different because of their different locations. Warmer air rises, cooler air drops, it's colder near the floor and warmer near the ceiling. Also all the sensors are accurate to within, say, +/- 2%, which can also make the readings vary a little.
"Typical" is a fairly wide range. Oregon Scientific weather stations (they're not a canonical source, just one I know offhand) used to report anything below 40% as "dry" and anything above 70% as "wet". 50% or so probably feels most "normal".
I would probably aim for something like "turn the fan on when it goes over 75% and turn it off when it drops below 65%", so it doesn't keep cycling on and off. You also have to consider things like the humidity going up everywhere when it rains.
No temperature or any humidity readout from any of my Homepod Minis are showing up. I don't really care as I have my own, third party sensors nor am I am surprised. Apple's Homekit is a debacle anyway and the Home App is laughably bad: the horizontal layout elements, like scenes, don't make any sense, the programmable automations embarrassingly weak in comparisons with third party app like Home+ or Controller, etc. Everything has the general feel of: it just doesn't work. There are always hiccups, reliability issues and other set backs.
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I plugged it into the Mac and then in the finder it appears in the side bar like a usb drive. If you click that it will tell you what software you’re on and you can restore from there. Once it’s restored you can plug it back into the power brick and go through the setup process again once that’s done, I went to the Home app and the accessories tab was in the homepod device settings and from there it should add the climate sensor information.
I’ve found the Home app to be quite great. The new architecture has given me some problems but I’m sure it will get fixed.
In the Home app if you go to the three dots in the circle in the upper right, then tap home settings, scroll down to software update and tap that from there it will let you request the update. Other than that you can restore the software by plugging it into a Mac and updating it through the finder you’ll have to go through setup again if you do that.
I find the Home App weak. You can't program any meaningful smart automations with it and the integration with third party accessories is lacking. It's annoying that one has to detour via third party apps. Directional control of a security camera? Can't be done in the Home App. Need a third party app. Third party apps can't control some hardware or the Homepod directly via automations. That needs to be controlled/programmed via scenes as Homekit doesn't allow direct access, etc.
All three of our HomePod mini's are updated and showing temperature and humidity. Asking Siri for temperature or humidity for the room the mini is in works great and if you ask for inside temperature Siri will respond with a range from all the minis. I updated an OG HomePod and when I ask it for inside temperature it gives the range of temperatures observed by the mini's, as expected.
In one room we have a humidifier so I left that running for a while and did see the humidity reported by the mini creep upwards. The reported temperatures are what I expect as well. So far so good!
In one room we have a humidifier so I left that running for a while and did see the humidity reported by the mini creep upwards. The reported temperatures are what I expect as well. So far so good!
Would be great if there was an automation to make Siri tell you via the HomePod mini if the humidity has reached a certain level.
after testing mine this morning it seems the lounge on my own egg temp said 14.6 and the homepod said 13.5 Granted they are in opposite sides of the room to maybe to why it's different which is possible given the differences. I'm picking up two homepod minis today one for hall landing where it tends to be the coldest and my sons room to see the difference in temp.
I have the same issue - HomePod mini appears to be wildly inaccurate at a reading of 23.5 celsius (which, to us in the UK, is almost a sunbathing temperature). I reckon it's probably about 4 to 6 degrees over-reading.
I'll wait for it to settle down and/or try restarting the pair, but if nothing else we're going to need the ability to set an offset. In fact an offset is probably going to be useful for people who place their HomePods on mantlepieces above fires &etc.
If it really was the stated temperature in the bedroom my partner would be bitching like hell🤣
Long-press on the sensor, Status -> Include in Home Summaries -> Off
That's all I've found so far. Doesn't appear to do anything though.
that doesn't disable the sensor and doesn't stop their values being included in the room stats.
I don't really trust the humidity values. We have a stereo HomePod mini pair sitting about 1.5m from each other, and they are showing a 7% difference in humidity levels.