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Keypad Button as HomeKit Triggers

P

PhilippLA

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 25, 2014
29
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So please correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a new feature of iOS 9 that keypads can now be HomeKit triggers? So you could have a keypad and when you press a button that button press can trigger a HomeKit scene. That is an official feature, correct?

Just asking because as far as I can tell there isn't a single switch released yet that supports this functionality. Insteon has awesome multi-button wall switches but the buttons can not be configured as HomeKit triggers. Same with the Philip's hue switches.

Just surprised that there isn't a single switch that can act as. HomeKit trigger. Starting to wonder if I made this up in my mind???
 
The Lutron Casseta switches also don't allow direct programming of individual buttons. There is a favorite dimmer setting on the pico remotes and I am going to try setting that favorite to like 97% dimmer and then set a homekit rule to that condition.

This should allow a single button press on the way out of the house to trigger a "I am leaving" scene.
 
TheCheapGeek said:
The Lutron Casseta switches also don't allow direct programming of individual buttons. There is a favorite dimmer setting on the pico remotes and I am going to try setting that favorite to like 97% dimmer and then set a homekit rule to that condition.

This should allow a single button press on the way out of the house to trigger a "I am leaving" scene.
Click to expand...

I don't believe you can use 97% as a trigger. As far as I understand you can only use "on" or "off" status as trigger. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
PhilippLA said:
I don't believe you can use 97% as a trigger. As far as I understand you can only use "on" or "off" status as trigger. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Click to expand...
It appears that Apple's Home app does only support on or off as a trigger but my third party Home app allows much more robust automation rules. These rules then sync back to Apples Home app.
 
PhilippLA said:
So please correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a new feature of iOS 9 that keypads can now be HomeKit triggers? So you could have a keypad and when you press a button that button press can trigger a HomeKit scene. That is an official feature, correct?

Just asking because as far as I can tell there isn't a single switch released yet that supports this functionality. Insteon has awesome multi-button wall switches but the buttons can not be configured as HomeKit triggers. Same with the Philip's hue switches.

Just surprised that there isn't a single switch that can act as. HomeKit trigger. Starting to wonder if I made this up in my mind???
Click to expand...
I've seen something similar. A while back, a video of an Insteon rep showing their keypads and HomeKit compatibility. He was able to press a button on the in-wall keypad to turn a group of Hue bulbs purple.

I have the Insteon keypad and some Hue bulbs as well but I do not have the HomeKit Insteon hub to try this myself. I only have the Hue HomeKit hub. It should be like activating a scene. Only the lights connected to the main button of the keypad can be controlled by Siri, but pressing any of the buttons physically activate "scenes". So he had a button linked to a Hue purple scene somehow.
 
Using the Pico remote favorite button to trigger a scene works as expected. I set the favorite to 97%, then I used a HomeKit automation to trigger when the specific light was at 97% and after 2 pm. The automated scene happens almost immediately.
 
So what do you do with that light at 97% after? It just stays like that?
 
chuyn said:
So what do you do with that light at 97% after? It just stays like that?
Click to expand...
Right now I haven't actually done anything with it. But you set a scene base on it.

So if you had a "Watch Movie" scene the button press could activate it.
 
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TheCheapGeek said:
Right now I haven't actually done anything with it. But you set a scene base on it.

So if you had a "Watch Movie" scene the button press could activate it.
Click to expand...
Oh good point. I had first thought just having the button trigger some random scene and not that it'd also be part of the scene.
 
chuyn said:
I've seen something similar. A while back, a video of an Insteon rep showing their keypads and HomeKit compatibility. He was able to press a button on the in-wall keypad to turn a group of Hue bulbs purple.

I have the Insteon keypad and some Hue bulbs as well but I do not have the HomeKit Insteon hub to try this myself. I only have the Hue HomeKit hub. It should be like activating a scene. Only the lights connected to the main button of the keypad can be controlled by Siri, but pressing any of the buttons physically activate "scenes". So he had a button linked to a Hue purple scene somehow.
Click to expand...

Can you find the video and post the link here?
 
chuyn said:
Yup, here it is:

Click to expand...

Thank you! Very interesting. Where does it say, though, that that is done via HomeKit? Did I miss that? I am not currently aware on how to do this without some of the hacks that have been mentioned on here. And even those wouldn't work with Insteon since the stupid Hub Pro doesn't actually report most device states back to HomeKit when triggered via one of the Keypad buttons.
 
It was mentioned in this thread on insteon's forums:

http://forum.smarthome.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17391

Also, if you noticed in the video, when he pressed the purple button, it just lit up and turned back off. So the button was set to always on (ie. pressing it always just turns on the lights, not off or dim, so it wouldn't need to report status back). I wish I had the hub pro to test it out, but I've only seen poor reviews on it so I've held off for now.
 
I was just thinking about this as we're getting ready to purchase a new home and do some remodelling.

In the kitchen/dining room for example I'm thinking maybe a combination of Hue bulbs and strips and a Hunter smart fan (includes light). Using traditional controls I would likely have a 4 box with a combination of switches, dimmers and controllers that would let me dim certain lights, turn the fan on and control speed, switch my under-cabinet lights on and off.

With smart products I could program scenes and use my phone/watch/Siri to control things, but what about for when a guest walks into the kitchen and wants to turn the lights on? With the traditional switches anyone could create any 'scene' they wanted from all off, to all on at full brightness and speed or something in between e.g. fan light only or under-cabinet lights and fan on slow etc...

Something like the 8 button Insteon control pad would presumably allow me quick access to 8 pre-programmed scenes, or have an on/off for 4 separate devices and 4 scenes, but it doesn't seem there's an easy way to adjust the fan speed, dim the main can light etc... from simple wall controls.
 
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