“The dream of a smart home where everything can be controlled at the tap of a button is about to get a step closer,” Mark Prigg reports for The Daily Mail.
“Apple’s new iOS 10 software, expected to be released on Wednesday, will include a new Home app built by Apple to make home control easier – and to take on amazon and Google in the battle for the smart living room,” Prigg reports. “It will allow users to control lights, blinds, doors and pretty much everything in their home from a single app – or by asking Siri.”
“Although Apple has been supporting HomeKit, its language to allow gadgets to talk to each other, for several years, the Home app will be the first time it has created a single app to control any compatible device,” Prigg reports. “Opening the Home app brings up a main screen that lists all favourite Scenes and favourite accessories for quick access… An ‘Automation’ feature in the Home app allows HomeKit accessories to be set up to perform actions based on time and location, such as turning on the lights when the sun sets or turning on the air conditioning when you leave work.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ready!
SEE ALSO:
Here’s everything that supports Apple’s HomeKit – August 19, 2016
Apple’s smart home vision is finally taking shape – August 17, 2016
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
Hopefully this will make the difference. The current setup works only some of the time. At other times the devices are MIA and I can either not switch them on or off or the timer settings fail to work.
This reminds me of when Apple worked with Motorola on a phone. The idea seemed good on paper but never gelled. Once Apple took over the whole device then it became a world beater.
The Home app as seen in the Public Beta is not very impressive. I say that as the owner of a number of Home Kit devices.
Next, why is Home Kit exclusive to iOS? I would much rather control and monitor from my Mac.
Same for the Apple TV remote. It would take far less effort to run a proper remote from my laptop.
Who can afford all the gadgets for the home app? I will have to work til in 75
They really aren’t that expensive. Just get one thing at a time if you really have to. It’s not like it’s a bundled together all or nothing.
Well Apple doesn’t make most of those. I have a Honeywell thermostat that was marked HomeKit compatible. I’m not sure if it will be supported or I”ll have to buy a new one but I will. This one was only like $99 and I’ve saved that much on my utility bill since I’ve had it. MyQ garage door opener for Liftmaster likewise was fairly inexpensive considering the convenience it provides. Now the Hue bulbs – they’re pricy. Call me quirky but I always hated having to choose daylight bright or soft white. I got both with HUE bulbs plus I can watch a few Syfy shows and synch the lights to the show so my living room (or whole house) becomes a theater with the lights changing color to the appropriate colors of the shows. It’s impressive but admittedly quirky like I said. I wish more networks would do what Syfy has done with its Sync app.
It will be supported if it is HomeKit enabled.
I just started remodeling my house today. Today will be a good day introduce new hardware.
I just started remodeling my house today. Today will be a good day for Apple (or its partners) to introduce new home hardware.
My biggest complaint are the constraints that HomeKit imposes.. There are thousands of device out there for home automation but Apple makes it almost impossible to build a bridge to control them all (e.g. Z-Wave, Zigbee, X10). They impose so many constraints that no one has been able to build a commercial bridge yet.
You can use your Apple TV as a bridge. This “complaint” is ridiculous and sounds like you just have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s unnecessary. That’s like saying “my biggest complaint about AT&T is that they make it impossible to have your own private cellular network that doesn’t use their towers.” Makes no ducking sense, right? Exactly.
Why are are people so ready to call others out as idiots in this forum?
Calm down.
Get a grip.
You’ll live longer.
I’m on beta iOS 10 so I’ve already been using this and it’s great. Strangely though, my thermostat no longer connects to my phone but still works on my iPad. After iOS 10 goes fully available I’ll remove it and readd it to HomeKit and hopefully that will fix it. Hopefully it was a one-off beta-type issue.
Welcome to Cook’s Apple. Complicated, slow, and buggy … and if Apple releases a home-based voice orb, it can now be justifiably labeled a me-too copier of competitor (Amazon) products. Oh wait, Amazon is a partner-competitor, since Apple rents iCloud server space from its least trustworthy enemies including not only Amazon but even worse scum like Google. That’s reassuring, isn’t it?
I’ve bought a thermostat, garage door opener and filled my lamps and lights with the Hue bulbs. The whole problem is having so many different apps to control everything. And getting Siri set up to understand a scene for a specific room is a nightmare that generates duplicates. This is truly one of the things that I look forward to in iOS10. I’ve wanted one app for everything for a LONG time. It may not be perfect but if it’s just not BUGGY as hell when it’s released it will be a hit for me. All I want is basic operations right now.
I agree. I currently have dozens of Insteon switches I’ve historically used Indigo on my iMac to control. When HomeKit came out, I added a SmartHome Insteon Pro Hub to the mix and started using their Insteon+ iPhone app to control. It works pretty well now, after a year of tweaking. Then, Apple threw the Apple Watch into the mix, which required a new third party iOS app named Home to give all my switches access to my new Apple Watch to control, either via its Watch app or via Siri. Then, again, I added a few Hue lights and it’s required bridge. Then, an Eve Weather sensor. Again, new functionality thrown in that worked pretty well. Then, incompatibilities between the devices’ app’s began to pop up. The third party Home app got a few revisions, which removed some key functionality that, in the name of simplicity, started actually hurting controls.
For example, originally, the third party iOS Home app would allow me to adjust the brightness of a light, which worked fine, but they removed that ability in favor of a simple on/off function. Sounds good, until you realize that my Insteon+ app was setting the brightness of a switch to zero when you used it to turn an Insteon switch off via their Insteon Pro Hub. Now, when I attempt to turn a light on with my Watch in the third party iOS app, sometimes nothing appears to happen. Checking my Insteon+ app, I find that the switch has in fact been turned on, but to a brightness of zero. I told the third party iOS Home developer about this issue, and his response was to create a Scene to reset the switch to the desired brightness, so now using Siri or his Watch app is no longer reliable except, now requiring me to say “Set Light X to 100%” instead of simply on.
Several of these third party apps also assume you’ll only use them to control your stuff, which is never the case. Turn a switch on manually and the third party app won’t know that. So, if a switch is off mechanically and the third party app thinks it’s on, it may not send the “on” command. This is especially true of the third party Home app. It assumes its internal database is the gold standard and routinely refuses to send the command you want if it conflicts with its database.
I’m hoping Apple’s new Home app, and Watch extension, will allow me to get around these third party issues and simplify using my HomeKit stuff. When it works as expected, HomeKit is great, and using Siri with my Watch has been very useful.
“Siri, turn on the light” Garage door opens.
“Siri, close the garage” Dishwasher starts.
“Siri, turn off dishwasher” Heater turns on.
“Siri, your pissing me off” Sorry, I didn’t get that, let me check the web for you.
No way would I trust her, she is a malicious little b***h when she wants to be…… 🙂