iPads are worthless as home hubs. Even Less reliable than the other terrible home hubs(HomePods Apple TVs)
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tvOS 17.4 Code References Mysterious homeOS
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If this news came 8-10 years ago, it would have been exciting. But now? They were first with Siri and HomeKit but stagnated and let others take the market. HomePod and ATV are still glorified hobbies.
I’m not even sure Apple has a vision in the home entertainment arena. What will they do? Copy Alexa and Google Nest?
I’m not even sure Apple has a vision in the home entertainment arena. What will they do? Copy Alexa and Google Nest?
They work well, except when in metal boxes. All mine are metal and it really cut the range.
Apple is at their best when they control the software AND the hardware.
HomeKit is not Apple's best.
Apple needs to make more home hardware if this is going to be a serious push into building out a homeOS. I would buy it all. Cameras, switches, outlets, window shades, door locks, sensors, alarms, monitoring bundled into iCloud Premier. I want all of it. I'm tired of managing a hodgepodge of devices that have poor response times and require things like my Raspberry Pi 4 with HomeBridge to work together. Sure, Matter will take care of that eventually. Maybe. I just want to live in a home that is Apple hardware and software together working in harmony without issues. It's why I buy all of their other stuff. It saves me time and hassle.
HomeKit is not Apple's best.
Apple needs to make more home hardware if this is going to be a serious push into building out a homeOS. I would buy it all. Cameras, switches, outlets, window shades, door locks, sensors, alarms, monitoring bundled into iCloud Premier. I want all of it. I'm tired of managing a hodgepodge of devices that have poor response times and require things like my Raspberry Pi 4 with HomeBridge to work together. Sure, Matter will take care of that eventually. Maybe. I just want to live in a home that is Apple hardware and software together working in harmony without issues. It's why I buy all of their other stuff. It saves me time and hassle.
There’s an exception to what I’m about to say that I’ll explain…
But since the Matter update, everything I couldn’t access previously I now have control over. The exception? Alexa. Anything “made for Alexa” doesn’t work, because I can’t actually sign it in to Matter, I can only action on 3rd party items from it. Granted, I’m down to only 2 plugs now… but Amazon needs to get on board here.
Ah never experienced that. Every switch in my house is Lutron now and I’ve never had them fail which is something i can’t say about any other smart home product.
I haven't had any issues with HomeKit (door sensors, elago power outlets, lots of lights, HomePod minis) with Apple TV as the hub at home and my summer house.
The new HomePod with display interests me, but I would prefer a redesign where the display is not facing straight up. I'd like to see it from further away, not only when standing next to the speaker.
The new HomePod with display interests me, but I would prefer a redesign where the display is not facing straight up. I'd like to see it from further away, not only when standing next to the speaker.
They worked OK, I just had to move the hub to the ground floor from the basement.
This was over a couple years ago, so I don't know if things are the same now.
HomeKit IS the platform, and is actually increasingly mature and robust. It is Apple's Home app which I think you are experiencing as being limited. There are actually quite a few capabilities that the Home app doesn't implement which are available in the HomeKit platform. Some Third Party apps utilize them.
My biggest issue is with Siri. I feel like there is literally zero intelligence (artificial or otherwise) when it comes to giving Home related commands to Siri. They'll make mistakes which are just plain dumb. (Ie, In a quiet room where Siri can hear just fine, "Turn OFF my Office lights." and the BEDROOM lights go off. I mean, come on...)
There are rumors that Apple is working on upgrading Siri to use ChatGPT style intelligence in parsing and understanding speech. I'm hopeful.
Yup this drives me nuts. I always tell it to run off my cabinet lights and my whole kitchen goes dark, or sometimes the whole house. The voice commands honestly worked better the first year of HomeKit. Commands i used regularly then dont’ work now after yelling them 5 times.
Philips Hue is pretty rock solid as well, since they use Zigbee instead of Thread/Bluetooth/WiFi. You pay handsomely for it though, and their devices focus primarily on lighting obviously.
Agree completely, in that Apple needs to make more First Party hardware to use within HomeKit.
But I do think HomeKit as a platform is actually quite good. It is just let down by the lack of exactly what you are describing.
(I also use Homebridge, and probably will for a long time, because I love me lots of cheap Zigbee devices. I've got over 250 sensors and whatnot across three "Homes" although two are actually commercial spaces. But I don't hold that against Apple. They don't want to "race to the bottom" on price and whatnot. They've at least made the HomeKit framework available so something like Homebridge can exist, and not shut it down as "unauthorized".)
I'm actually not a fan of the new "chime" when Siri completes a task that is in another room, as opposed the the previous way of SPEAKING what it had just done. ("Okay, the Kitchen Lights are OFF.")
Because with the chime, you don't know WHAT has been done, and I don't trust Siri much. Who knows what might have been turned on or off...
Edit: Just removing an unnecessary apostrophe.
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Apple, once again, was positioned to dominate the smart home market… and then got distracted and finds itself in a sad, catch up position.
I agree that Apple needs a comprehensive smart home strategy. Better late than never, but this should have happened at least five years ago.
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I used to think it would be but lately every time mine switches it my new Apple TV i lose a number of my thread devices. I just reset it last night to get it switched back to a HomePod so i could fix that
Lutron, Philips Hue and Starling Hub for my Nest/Google cams and thermostats. Solid setup. Works well in both Google Home and Apple Home. Keep it simple. I prefer dumb lights with smart switches. Use HomePod minis and Apple TVs. Don't overthink it...
Actually, we've been using smart home technology for over 30 years. What is "in its infancy" is the mass adoption, vendor lock-in, monetizing, and information gathering smart home technology.
We're still using old technology that does not require phoning home. Works really well. But given the choice of ease of use by giving away all my personal information or getting up to flip the switch, I'm increasingly leaning toward getting up to flip the switch.
Case in point, just this morning I had to Remove a recalcitrant Wemo and re-add it. Another frustrating accessory is my new Mysa floor thermostat. The Mysa is leagues better than the frustrating Aube, but Mysa can only be added to HomeKit iff your phone is also on the 2.4Gz band, and I don't want to bother with that on my 6-node mesh. Argh -- stuck operating the Mysa only through its own app!
I am on the very edge of buying a HomePod 2 pair to replace my aging sound system. Now this makes me think too much about it.
I'd recommend to wait for HomePod 3.
