HomeKit Took the HomeKit Plunge ... all good but one thing

[rforno]

Finally decided to dump Amazon Echos and expand my HomePodding setup. So far I've been very impressed with basic home automation stuff and its responsiveness/speed with Siri.

One thing I've noticed: I've tried several different Matter-compatible bulb brands and when I change color and then change it back again, the color changes but the brightness never goes beyond like 50% even if Home shows the brightness as 100% in the app. So I have to reset the bulbs to get back to the normal 'bright' setting ... which means I'm not doing any color-changing to avoid this headache.

Is this a known Homekit quirk? Is there something I'm missing with how I'm setting up scenes? Or should I just dump Matter bulbs and try to snag Hue bulbs even though they now apparently require an internet connection and letting Phillips snag my use data?

Thanks for any ideas or pointers!

 

[erihp]

Matter sucks.

And, don't get Hue.

 

[jedimasterkyle]

I have many Philips Hue bulbs in my apartment and I've never had a problem like you described. Personally, I control my Hue bulbs through the Hue app 90% of the time anyways because I've found the Apple Home app removes some of the functionality of 3rd party devices anyways. So maybe use the manufacture app for your lights and see if that makes an improvement?

 

[erihp]

I have many Philips Hue bulbs in my apartment and I've never had a problem like you described. Personally, I control my Hue bulbs through the Hue app 90% of the time anyways because I've found the Apple Home app removes some of the functionality of 3rd party devices anyways. So maybe use the manufacture app for your lights and see if that makes an improvement?

yuck

 

[rforno]

I have many Philips Hue bulbs in my apartment and I've never had a problem like you described. Personally, I control my Hue bulbs through the Hue app 90% of the time anyways because I've found the Apple Home app removes some of the functionality of 3rd party devices anyways. So maybe use the manufacture app for your lights and see if that makes an improvement?

Well, the bulbs don't have apps per se, but if Hue gets a good price on Amazon Prime Day, I don't mind spending a few bucks on 6 bulbs and a hub to experiment on.

I do agree the Home app is lacking beyond the basics. Not to mention, you can only add devices from iPhones (not Macs) and there's not a lot of options. I actually downloaded ControllerForHomeKit and it's pretty much what Home should've been -- far more granular control and flexibility (if-then conditions) and for some reason it also discovered 'stealth' scenes that were screwing things up but which Home didn't show.

 

[Itinj24]

Well, the bulbs don't have apps per se, but if Hue gets a good price on Amazon Prime Day, I don't mind spending a few bucks on 6 bulbs and a hub to experiment on.

I do agree the Home app is lacking beyond the basics. Not to mention, you can only add devices from iPhones (not Macs) and there's not a lot of options. I actually downloaded ControllerForHomeKit and it's pretty much what Home should've been -- far more granular control and flexibility (if-then conditions) and for some reason it also discovered 'stealth' scenes that were screwing things up but which Home didn't show.

I agree that the Home app should have baked in conditionals for automations but you can achieve “if, then” automations in the Home app by converting to Shortcut. It’s all the way at the bottom of the page when you create an automation. There will be a tab that says “Convert to Shortcut” and it works great. Actually better than the third party HomeKit apps in my experience.

My whole house is outfitted with various Philips Hue lights, mainly the can lights. Been using Hue for many years and it’s been flawless until now. I’ve been having some issues with them since iOS 17 was released. Mainly with grouped lights. This is definitely a HomeKit issue and not Hue since they work perfectly in Hue. HomeKit had always and will continue to have its fair share of bugs. I haven’t migrated to Matter either since I prefer the Adaptive Lighting feature.

 

[savagewatts]

This is a known issue with Matter. Go into the app and turn Matter off and it should resolve your issue. There are plenty of articles about it online.

 

[erihp]

This is a known issue with Matter. Go into the app and turn Matter off and it should resolve your issue. There are plenty of articles about it online.

They just ignored me, maybe typing more words will work :V