What's New With HomeKit in iOS 15

[VictorTango777]

It's because the Homepod, iPhone or other Apple device is doing the secure processing of the request that the third party device is incapable of doing by virtue of its hardware. The idea is that an Apple device may be in your home however in another room and out of vocal range, but say a Sonos is much closer — so the Sonos speaker would theoretically accept the Siri request, sends it to the other apple device in the other room which securely processes it, then sends the results back to the Sonos seamlessly. This way allows the use of Siri without letting a third party into the secure stack.

But only the following Apple devices can be a HomeKit hub:

Set up your HomePod, HomePod mini, Apple TV, or iPad as a home hub - Apple Support

Set up a home hub to control your smart home accessories while you're away from home, share control of your accessories with others, and automate your accessories to do what you want, when you want.

support.apple.com

Note that Macs and iPhones are not in the list

 

[siddavis]

You don’t have to buy a HomePod. Your iPad or Appletv can also do the job (except for that one specific feature). Heaven forbid you actually need to own apple products to get fully immersed in the Apple experience.

This is your response? Yes, my post was for that one specific feature, Siri Third Party Accessory Integration. According to the OP, you need to own or buy a $99+ hub to utilize Siri on THIRD PARTY devices. Excuse me for thinking this is stupid, and for general consumers, I think they will find it stupid too. My first Alexa device was an Ecobee thermostat and guess what, it worked without any other Alexa device in my home. How are manufacturers going to market Siri functionality if it doesn't work without a $99+ add on?

BTW, I own 3 iPads and 3 AppleTVs, so I know I'm covered for HomeKit hubs. So why can't these already required HomeKit hubs do the job to route Siri requests? Guess I'm not fully immersed enough

 

[NightFox]

I'm a huge believer (and inve$tor, ha) in HomeKit accessories in every room but even I'd say "quirky AF" is pretty apt. It's the comments, not yours, that claim "it's trash" or simply "doesn't work" or something else dramatic. Legit, solid HK accessories – no, not Hoobs/Homebridge hacks – work solid depending on your home network. But very diverse wireless networks and issues at home, from boxes to mesh to ISPs to microwaves, really seem to create most 'IOT' issues, HomeKit or otherwise. This article highlights how much more Apple could do, personally. I'd have to hope further development on API or UX with Home app/HK was paused a bit this year while the 'more important' Matter alliance stuff is being worked out.

Totally agree - but the unfortunate things is because HomeKit adoption has been so poor, people (like me) who really want to try and use Home as their home automation hub (bringing in my Ring system and other non-native HK IoT devices) have to revert to the likes of HOOBs, and that's the point at which things start becoming flakey and it becomes a hobbyist's platform rather than a stable, behind-the-scenes home automation platform.

 

[Devnul0]

Ah, "Updating" and "No Response". I upgraded the Wifi equipment in the house and that got better but it's still not perfect. Seems like if the phone goes idle, it doesn't get any of the updates or stay in contact. Should the Apple TV, acting as a hub, not always be in touch and have all that information and so the phone should be able to just query the ATV and immediately get a result? Amusingly enough, I often have Siri set scenes correctly even as the phone says a device isn't responding.
The biggest bug I deal with every day is that if I ask Siri to set a scene via my Apple Watch, it sets the fixtures on/off and the intensities, but does not set the colors. Or it sets the colors but not the intensities. Using Siri on the iPhone gets it right.
I really like the idea of "Set scene X at 7pm" or "Turn off the house in an hour".
The feature I'd like the most is more control over what switches do. Now, of course something like a Lutron switch in the wall that has wifi control is always going to appear as an on/off controllable switch. What I mean are things like the little Hue button switches. I can set a button to set a scene, but that's it. I can't set a button to mean on AND off for a fixture. I can't tell it to set scene X then set scene Y (which would be a workaround way to get on and off). I have to have two buttons, one to set a scene that turns on the fixture(s), and another to set a scene that turns them off. That's incredibly irritating.
And hey … it would be great if someone made a nice little physical button panel, like Insteon has, where I could then program all the buttons to scenes or fixtures or automations. I know I could use an old iPad in kiosk mode but I'd like several of these around the house (by the front door, in the bedroom, in the living room).

 

[NightFox]

Home key doesn’t add much value. It’s just as easy to open the smart lock app as it is to pull up a pass in your Wallet. Now if the smart lock hardware could prompt your phone to automatically display the home key when you approach it the feature would be worth bragging about.

Yes - my Yale smart door lock can be set to automatically unlock my front door as I approach it through its native app, without any interaction. However, if I do this through HomeKit (it has native HK support), I get a notification, then I have to unlock the phone and approve the automation to run. Apple legal advisors earning their pay I guess.

If this is going to be the same, I may as well just get my keys out of my pocket, it'll be quicker.

 

[siddavis]

Sure. The existing system allows full access to uploaded photos by US law enforcement. US law allows Apple to be ordered silent on this, and you can bet there's such an order in place.

The proposed system for iOS 15 removes this access. Your photos are encrypted in the cloud. If your photo matches a known list of CSAM images, mathematically it's possible for the image to be viewed to make sure it really is one of the CSAM images. The net impact is that Apple won't have access to your photos unless the hash on an individual photo matches a CSAM image, and the US government won't have access to the image unless both hash and image (the latter, as verified by Apple) match. (And the odds of the hash matching without the image matching aren't quite impossible, but damn close.)

The move to the hash system of iOS 15 is a huge increase in your privacy. So much so that I'm not even sure they'll be allowed to do it, ultimately. If you're offended by that, the full access in iOS 14 and earlier should really offend you. (And to be clear, this is a legal requirement, so you're not going to get a better privacy deal elsewhere.)

One key component would be end-to-end encryption. I would be on board with their approach if it led to this, but alas Apple has not stated this is the final goal. Some have presumed that this is the next logical step, but it has not been confirmed. So what you describe is no more privacy focused because Apple holds the keys and CAN be forced to reveal.

But this is a HomeKit discussion and my opinion there is that Apple has a lot of work to do to make it seamless like many other of their offerings. I put my hope in HomeKit as a more secure platform, but it cannot come at significant more expense AND a poor user experience. So far for me, it has been both.

 

[danpass]

I really like HomeKit, for it's security. I've got a camera, a garage door controller, mini HomePod, various light switches and wifi outlet add ons and everything works smoothly.

 

[gk4]

The feature I'd like the most is more control over what switches do. Now, of course something like a Lutron switch in the wall that has wifi control is always going to appear as an on/off controllable switch. What I mean are things like the little Hue button switches. I can set a button to set a scene, but that's it. I can't set a button to mean on AND off for a fixture. I can't tell it to set scene X then set scene Y (which would be a workaround way to get on and off). I have to have two buttons, one to set a scene that turns on the fixture(s), and another to set a scene that turns them off. That's incredibly irritating.
And hey … it would be great if someone made a nice little physical button panel, like Insteon has, where I could then program all the buttons to scenes or fixtures or automations. I know I could use an old iPad in kiosk mode but I'd like several of these around the house (by the front door, in the bedroom, in the living room).

You can easily do all of that with automations. That's exactly how I have my hue smart buttons and hue remotes set up. The Hue smart button in specific absolutely requires that functionality to be present if I'm using it to control a light since it is only a single button.

 

[siddavis]

It's because the Homepod, iPhone or other Apple device is doing the secure processing of the request that the third party device is incapable of doing by virtue of its hardware. The idea is that an Apple device may be in your home however in another room and out of vocal range, but say a Sonos is much closer — so the Sonos speaker would theoretically accept the Siri request, sends it to the other apple device in the other room which securely processes it, then sends the results back to the Sonos seamlessly. This way allows the use of Siri without letting a third party into the secure stack.

Thank you for this explanation and I can appreciate the requirement. Any reason why my already established HomeKit hubs can't perform this processing function? Do they not contain the requisite hardware? In any case, the concept seems like it will make things less reliable and less responsive than competitors.

 

[gk4]

I think the people who constantly blame 'not responding' issues on bad WiFi are just looking for excuses to absolve Apple of any blame with regards to the unreliability of homekit.

I have my aTV as my home hub and my Hue bridge and Lutron bridge directly wired into the same switch that my aTV is wired to. I open the home app on my iPad and see a specific accessory not responding, then slide down control center on my phone and see that same accessory is responding there (and I control it from there)

Not sure how any part of my network can be to blame here:

• If my aTV was unable to talk to the Hue bridge due to network issues - then all devices talking to homekit via that home hub (in this case my ipad and iphone) would show not repsonding
• If my iPad or iPhone were not able to talk to my aTV due to network issues - then all homekit device would appear as not responding to my phone

 

[boswald]

I guess I’m just an old-fashioned “boomer” because I’d rather press a doorbell, manually adjust the thermostat and physically turn on the radio and lights. 🤷‍♂️

 

[Dizzy714]

HKSV still locked to 1080p, no sound detection, no zone detection. Bummer.

 

[gk4]

I guess I’m just an old-fashioned “boomer” because I’d rather press a doorbell, manually adjust the thermostat and physically turn on the radio and lights. 🤷‍♂️

It's not that simple. Stuff like splitting fixtures that are on the same circuit to be independently controllable, or even independently controlling lights within a single fixture (like a 6 bulb track light setup) are extremely complex and costly (if possible at all) the transitional way.

My first foray into smart lights was for this exact reason. My living room and dining room were illuminated by 2, 4 bulb track light systems that were on the same circuit. I wanted finer grained control. I wanted to be able to brightly illuminate the dining room area without also needing to drown out the TV in lights. Smart bulbs were a really attainable way to do this. I didn't need to rip apart the ceiling and multiple walls to run a slew of wiring, I just needed to by some overpriced bulbs.

The thermostat was my second. Even if I could reliably get my kids to adjust the thermostat after they left for school (which would have been a virtually impossible feat) the idea of having a thermostat that knew how long it took to get my house from a given temp to it's pre-set temp, and have it do that automatically was desireable. I could set the AC to turn off when everyone left, but also tell it that I want the house at my desired temp when I got home and know that it would turn on the system at the appropriate time. Or even be smart enough to know that the duration of time that I was asking it to be off for was too short, and it would actually expend less energy by just maintaining the temp rather than turning off, letting temps rise, then needing to bring them back down a short time later.

 

[boswald]

It's not that simple. Stuff like splitting fixtures that are on the same circuit to be independently controllable, or even independently controlling lights within a single fixture (like a 6 bulb track light setup) are extremely complex and costly (if possible at all) the transitional way.

My first foray into smart lights was for this exact reason. My living room and dining room were illuminated by 2, 4 bulb track light systems that were on the same circuit. I wanted finer grained control. I wanted to be able to brightly illuminate the dining room area without also needing to drown out the TV in lights. Smart bulbs were a really attainable way to do this. I didn't need to rip apart the ceiling and multiple walls to run a slew of wiring, I just needed to by some overpriced bulbs.

The thermostat was my second. Even if I could reliably get my kids to adjust the thermostat after they left for school (which would have been a virtually impossible feat) the idea of having a thermostat that knew how long it took to get my house from a given temp to it's pre-set temp, and have it do that automatically was desireable. I could set the AC to turn off when everyone left, but also tell it that I want the house at my desired temp when I got home and know that it would turn on the system at the appropriate time. Or even be smart enough to know that the duration of time that I was asking it to be off for was too short, and it would actually expend less energy by just maintaining the temp rather than turning off, letting temps rise, then needing to bring them back down a short time later.

You make good points. I should reconsider what I said.

 

[Websnapx2]

Thank you for this explanation and I can appreciate the requirement. Any reason why my already established HomeKit hubs can't perform this processing function? Do they not contain the requisite hardware? In any case, the concept seems like it will make things less reliable and less responsive than competitors.

Honestly, that I am not sure — there shouldn't be a reason, say, a new AppleTV 4K can't do it (aside from maybe the limitations that device has on what it can do with Siri, like messaging) or at least an iDevice (which has no limitations for Siri). The cynical response would be to sell more homepods, but I think it may be more than that.

 

[Websnapx2]

But only the following Apple devices can be a HomeKit hub:

Set up your HomePod, HomePod mini, Apple TV, or iPad as a home hub - Apple Support

Set up a home hub to control your smart home accessories while you're away from home, share control of your accessories with others, and automate your accessories to do what you want, when you want.

support.apple.com

Note that Macs and iPhones are not in the list

I appreciate that, and maybe I shouldn't have included the iPhone... but the point I was making was that a third party speaker requires another device because Siri requests need to be routed through a device that can securely process it, and those third-party devices will not be equipt to do that.

 

[nitramluap]

Currently running iOS 14.7.1. Recently bought my first HomeKit device, a smart outlet. I was surprised that after all the years that HomeKit has been available, there is still no sleep timer/countdown timer function.

Yeah, I'd love to be able to say "Hey Siri, turn everything off in 15 minutes"

 

[sclawis300]

This is your response? Yes, my post was for that one specific feature, Siri Third Party Accessory Integration. According to the OP, you need to own or buy a $99+ hub to utilize Siri on THIRD PARTY devices. Excuse me for thinking this is stupid, and for general consumers, I think they will find it stupid too. My first Alexa device was an Ecobee thermostat and guess what, it worked without any other Alexa device in my home. How are manufacturers going to market Siri functionality if it doesn't work without a $99+ add on?

BTW, I own 3 iPads and 3 AppleTVs, so I know I'm covered for HomeKit hubs. So why can't these already required HomeKit hubs do the job to route Siri requests? Guess I'm not fully immersed enough

Ohhh look at all the Apple things I own. 🙄🙄🙄 Change platforms if you don’t like it. Some people will complain just for the sake of complaining I guess.

 

[sclawis300]

Who’s to say it won’t? With Apple Pay you don’t have to open the wallet up first, you can just tap it on the terminal and it’ll automatically open up your wallet and the default card.

It wasn’t a specific feature they highlighted so I may be wrong, but I hope they bake that into it like they did with Apple Pay.

My building keycard was loaded into my wallet. I never had to do anything. Just held my watch up to the sensor and it opened the door at work. Wouldn’t this be the same? Seems unnecessary if you could just set up a geofence though.

 

[Chapman8tor]

I have Google Nest speakers in my home BECAUSE I have Apple HomeKit issues too! At least I can count on Google most of the time.

 

[Deliro]

HomeKit camera integration needs work. Most features of my "HomeKit compatible" camera don't function. Reviewing video is painful. I have a EufyCam that is wireless, lasts about 4-5 months on a charge. If it's hooked to HomeKit the battery is gone in under a week with constant false activity and recording. Granted I haven't tried it again in iOS14, but 13 was so bad that I have no interest in trying again.

 

[Itinj24]

You know what app needs a swipe down to refresh more than Safari did?!?…
Hint* We’re discussing it right now.

Also needs a temporary mute notifications for cameras. Like to always get notifications for activity in my driveway, except the few times that my kids are playing in it for over an hour. Would be nice to be able to mute the notifications for 30 mins or so at a time.

 

[mapsdotapp]

You know you could take a photo with your phone right?

Oh sorry, let me just point my phone camera at my phone screen and take a photo.

 

[VictorTango777]

I’m curious - do developers purposely release products missing obvious features so they can have something to show for future updates? Examples:

MacOS could not rearrange servers in the Connect To Server list for over 15 years.

Reminders application for iPhone and iPad could not sort items by name for 9 years after the application was first available.

After 10 years, Notability and GoodNotes still can’t create tables.

 

[SalisburySam]

HomeKit has proven a very mixed bag for me over the years and lots of software changes. Some devices work MOST of the time, some work occasionally, some cannot be connected at all. So who to blame? Everyone. In my completely uneducated-on-the-subject opinion, the fault lies in the compatibility specifications. These are either too generic, too limited in their scope, or they don’t reflect the actual Apple HomeKit implementation. My thinking: if it says it’s compatible, it should work, work well, and work under all conditions such as losing and restoring power.

For example from my experience: the Rachio3 irrigation controller has always been and is currently sold with the HomeKit Compatible label. It isn’t. Has never even connected for me, and the support blog is rife with similar stories. The iHome SmartPlugs (I have 11) work MOST of the time but at some point for whatever reason they decide to go rogue. Only fix is to unplug for a few seconds, and plug back in…this USUALLY fixes the issue. When it doesn’t, you have to reset the device to factory and reinstall into HomeKit. Cumbersome but not too bad except for that plug behind the large piece of furniture, or the one in the garage, or the one behind the bed, or the ones in other locations not easily accessed exactly where you might use a SmartPlug.

I keep hoping that HomeKit will begin to work at some point as well as the X-10 devices did in the ’80’s. The only issue I ever had with them is that they did not work well in a large home with multiple load centers, requiring an bridge to be installed across the 120v leads.