“Imagine this: You’re just getting home from a long day at work. But instead of flipping a light switch or blasting the air conditioning, you reach for your iPhone and say, ‘Hey Siri, I’m home,'” Lisa Eadicicco reports for TIME Magazine. “Suddenly, the lights turn on, the window shades begin to rise, and the temperature cools.”
MacDailyNews Take: Why would you need to say anything? Your iPhone already knows it’s home. Just arrive and whatever you’ve set up happens. It just works.
“This is how Apple wants us to live in the not-too-distant future,” Eadicicco reports. “The Cupertino, Calif. company took its first significant step in this direction in 2014 with the introduction of HomeKit, which lets users control Internet-connected appliances with their iPhones. But HomeKit has a significant drawback: It lacks a central hub for users with lots of different kinds of that equipment.”
“That will change when Apple releases iOS 10 this fall. Included in the new iPhone software will be an app called Home, which will function as a control center for smart home gear from lightbulbs to thermostats,” Eadicicco reports. “It’s a big step for Apple, and for smart home technology in general…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Thanks to Apple, the smarthome is about to become reality for the masses.
SEE ALSO:
How Apple’s HomeKit could revolutionize energy – August 17, 2016
Where’s Apple’s Home app for Apple TV? – July 6, 2016
Apple’s new iOS 10 Home app takes HomeKit to the next level: Easy control, extra convenience – June 25, 2016
Along with Apple TV, your iPad can be an Apple Home hub, too – June 16, 2016
The Home app is the program Apple should have shipped with HomeKit – October 9, 2015
I’m already there with my Hue bulbs in all rooms, Honeywell thermostat and Liftmaster garage door. I’ll probably need a new thermostat but I’ve REALLY been waiting for a single app to control everything. I hope the home app will integrate and not just be a central folder for all the other disparate apps that control all the crap. We will see if apple can make the other apps obsolete. The beauty is giving the Siri commands through the watch. That’s cool. On a separate note, Apple should do something so that when I say Hey Siri, goodnight, she at least says goodnight back rather than trying to do a web search.
Get the ecobee3. As I was stating in another thread, it’s 100% HomeKit compatible, meaning that you can says “Siri I’m home” with Home in iOS 10. The separate ecobee branded app is really good, but it’s also controllable through Siri commands and scenes.
Let me be clear, you can control the temperature of your house through Home. Home sees the ecobee3 (or Honeywell Lyric or whatever) and it shows up as a “Home” item. The item says 74º in my case. Then a long/force press on the item makes it expand to the full screen, and then it’s like an up and down slider which allows you to change the temperature. This is all through Home, or on the command center screen of iOS 10.
What I don’t think you were ever see in “Home” is stuff like scheduling, or the ability to change “comfort settings” (Away / Home / Sleep temps). You’ll pretty much always have to go to the app of the 3rd party vendor for things like that.
HomeKit allows a way for the 3rd party company to create an interface, and hook it up to siri, but that doesn’t mean that specialized interface will show in “Home.” Hope you can picture that? Home has things like dimmable sliders for lights, and temperature sliders for thermostats and water heaters, but Apple isn’t probably going to have the interface you need to control specific things like the extra sensors on the ecobee3.
However, Home already does have it’s own scheduling. and you can get 90% of the way there with that. I just think realistically, you’ll always have the vendor app on your phone for fine tuning as well.
I am in the planning stages for a home that will be a vacation home now and my primary residence in retirement. I want the thing to be a connected home with lights out management as it is 2,412 miles by road (Memphis metro area to Vancouver metro area) from my home. At that distance the ability to keep an eye on things is a very big deal.
Home automation has been around for some time but is just now entering the broad consumer market and is coming down in price even as it gains capabilities. HomeKit already has available apps that can monitor for leaks, control the HVAC, lighting, monitor air quality, watch with Face Detection cameras, control locks, monitor the weather outside, turn on and off various electrical devices, etc.
Add geofencing, mobile internet with Homekit and you have a powerful potential for a connected home.
I’d like to know if Apple is planning a new series of Airport routers that will incorporate added elements for Home; like microphones and speakers. I need to upgrade my wireless networking. If Apple’s home automation is going to be enhanced through the use of specialized networking components they might have in the works it would be nice to know.
While I love tech stuff, I’ve avoided automating my home for fear of hackers learning when I am home and not home. I simply do not trust the security on the computer/home connection devices now on the market.
However, I do trust Apple to get security right. So as soon as HomeKit gets really geared up on the iPhone, i’m there.
Well, if knowing when you are home or not is the concern, I’d think that parking a car across your street is much easier than hacking into HomeKit. I think you might be more afraid than you should be on that one.
I agree that internet accounts are never 100% secure, but there’s nothing too mission critical in my home automation that hackers would threaten. Even if they unlock my front door (which Schlage says is highly unlikely), you have to think that physical access to your home has always been possible… I mean I have windows that can be broken, how about you?