r/HomeKit

Hello everybody from the good life!

I’ve recently fallen down the rabbit hole of home automation. I’ve now set up most of my lights with Hue, and I also bought some of IKEA’s new Matter smart plugs.

Now I want to make everything work together in the same automations, which means I need some kind of hub/controller.

I see a lot of people recommending Home Assistant, but honestly, it looks a bit complicated to set up and maintain. I also want the system to be easy for my SO to use, so I don’t want to build something that requires a lot of tinkering.

I’ve also been looking into Apple Home. I understand that I’d need a Home Hub for this, and with Apple’s new Home products supposedly coming, I’m wondering if it’s worth waiting.

The new wall-mounted Apple Home device looks really interesting, but then I’d have to wait for it (or wait for a good deal on an Apple TV, maybe around Black Friday).

I have an LG G4, so I don’t really need an Apple TV as a media device. I’d mainly be buying it to use as a Home Hub.

So what would you recommend?

Should I wait for Apple’s new home products, buy an Apple TV now, or go with something like Home Assistant instead?

And if Apple is the better route, should I specifically wait for the new Apple Home hub rather than buying an Apple TV?

Would love to hear what people who have a similar setup would do.

Hi all - so besides the little chime box that comes with the aqara doorbell, is the only other way to hear and get notifications in the home is with apple home pods?

Since it can’t detect when the door is open or closed, can it be paired with a door sensor that can detect when the door is closed and then set up an automation that says: If the door is closed and remains closed for more than 10 minutes and the lock is unlocked, then lock the lock?

So I was thinking of changing over some of my lightbulbs to matter over thread bulbs until I realised I’d have to change every single automation I have that has the old bulbs, which seems like a massive pain. Even with grouped accessories you can’t just add something new into the group and have automations pick them up. Any ideas?

OK, we’re getting into it. So I’ve got an NL 67 Nanoleaf essentials bulb from like 2024. I want to put dynamic scenes on it, but not in the Nanoleaf app, like in the home app. But how do I do that? That’s the thing. It doesn’t expose shortcuts. It doesn’t expose the scene engine. It just doesn’t work. And that’s the thing too. Like, I could try running home assistant, but I don’t even think it works with the NL 67. I highly doubt it

Like, seriously, even people who have matter over thread essentials bulbs have been asking Nelle if nonstop, hey, gave us dynamic lighting that can be exposed to HomeKit, but they haven’t done anything about it. Like, is there any workaround? That’s the thing. You may say something like, just use home assistant. It does not work with the NL 67. I checked. Plus, I’m not about to reinstall a whole OS on my PC just to put a dynamic scene on one bulb. That’s ridiculous

So the underlying question is, like, can I work around that? or am I just stuck to static scenes because when I try doing it with group scenes, it just freezes on one color and just stays there? Trust me, I’ve tried this before. I had another essentials blob, but that one I had to put that one away because I got rid of the lamp that was housing the second one and I didn’t really have anywhere else to put it, so I just saved it just in case of my first one died. But back to the underlying topic, I tried doing this with the group scenes work around, yeah, that did not work. It just froze on the same color it was, so say if I wanted to do, I don’t know, northern lights and then I put that as a group scene and then upload it to HomeKit instead of staying on instead of switching to Aurora Magic or northern lights, it just stayed on Aqua or red or blue or whatever

Any work around around it? Can I use a PC as a matter controller? Can I download an app that does anything that’s like the underlying issue? I tried looking everywhere, but the same solutions popped up. Use home assistant. It doesn’t work. Use Nanoleaf animations. Oh yeah, it says unsupported when I tried doing that or just use the paid app that expose Siri shortcuts. I’m not about to pay a subscription just to get something that should be free. So yeah, if I knew if you had any workarounds, I need it because seriously, who wants static boring home kit scenes like no offense to those who prefer those, but like I want some personality

I've got an IT guy from Best Buy (not Geek Squad) trying to assist me with Home integration, setting up scenes. We have a constant issue with dropping calls as the cell service at home is not good. We installed Starlink and calls are still dropping. We go through wifi calling. I was thinking of an Orbi mesh - he's recommending a Ruckus system instead. I would not get the monitored subscription service for $400 per year - just the installation.

What do you think?

It seems simple, even more so with apple “intelligence”. When I say for example, “Siri, turn on the garage lights and turn on the back porch lights”. The response I get is - “sorry, I can’t find those lights in your home” as if it jumbled the whole request into one instead of separate lights.

Now I know, there’s scenes that can do this. But sometimes I need a couple niche lights turned on and it would just make sense to be able to say both of them in the same request…right? 😅 or am I missing a setting or how I’m wording it for Siri to understand what I’m wanting?

We're about to move into a new home, so I'm taking this opportunity to clean up and reorganize our Apple Smart Home, specially my outside rooms and areas. We currently have rooms for the Front Door, Front Porch, Front Yard, and Driveway. All with 1 or 2 devices in each. It got me thinking "Do I need these or should I just make a room called Front Yard or Outside and group most of these together?"

So, I wanted to see how others assign/organize their outside spaces. I also have a zone setup called Outside to easily control all those devices at one. I guess it's seeing 4 rooms with 1 device that's driving my OCD nuts. Thanks!

Hi all, I have 3 AC units which i currently use with the onecta app. I would like to use it with homekit. Is this possible? I saw a post that had a link to github a few years ago (homebridge?). Does that mean i have to have a computer running 24/7?

I’m looking at buying a portable unit for the garden office but ideally want to integrate it into the smart home somehow. I have a Tado setup for heating and they seem to have an air con controller that might work but wondering if anyone has found another solution that works? Maybe a HomeBridge plugin for a particular brand?

I really don’t want an IR controlled solution that doesn’t let me see the current status of the unit.

Is it possible to have a notification generated when a known device rejoins your network? Or maybe when ANY device joins your network? Perhaps using a shortcut?

Hi all. My girlfriend has a few homepods and we are trying to get my smart lights from a few different companies paired with them/her iCloud account/Home, but for some reason when she sends me invites via the Home app, I do not receive them. She's tried a few times, I've confirmed that the email address is the one that my iCloud is assigned to and is correct. In her Home app, it just says that the invite is pending, but I have not received anything (not in spam, not in my Home app, etc). Can anyone help with this? Thank you.

I saw on the iPhone sub there seemed to be some hoorahs on the latest beta (dev 6, public 4) and fixes for some issues. For anyone who has updated, how is HomeKit doing?

looking for beta testers for a plugin that uses Google Cast, Android TV Protocol v2 and ADB protocols for adding, remote controlling and synchronizing playback status of google Chromecast/ android TVs.

sudo npm install -g github:vivekanandbv/Homebridge-ADB-Cast

My partner runs everything through Google and I am on Apple Home, and we have already had one argument about a set of lights that only properly worked on one of them. Buying twice just to keep the peace makes no sense. Is there a sensible way to pick lighting that behaves the same on both, or is somebody in this house going to have to switch?