“Unless you’ve had a chance to try some Apple HomeKit products in someone’s home or apartment, it can be hard to understand how it all works,” Megan Rose Dickey reports for TechCrunch. “In order to help with that, Apple has unveiled interactive HomeKit experiences in 46 of its retail stores worldwide.”
“Now, when you go into Apple’s new retail stores, you’ll be able to use the Home app from either an Apple Watch, iPhone or iPad to control devices like the Phillips Hue light bulb, the Hunter ceiling fan and many others,” Dickey reports. “If you tap to the lower the shades in the living room, for example, you’ll see the shades lower in the house shown on the screen.”
“In the U.S., people can check out the experience at Apple’s Union Square store in San Francisco, its World Trade Center and Williamsburg stores in New York, and 28 other stores throughout the country,” Dickey reports. “Outside of the U.S., Apple offers these experiences in 15 stores, including ones in the UK, UAE, Germany, Mexico, Singapore and Taiwan. A non-interactive HomeKit experience will be offered at all of Apple’s other stores — the ones without ‘The Avenue’ window displays.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Another smart bit of education-based marketing from Angela Ahrendts!
This will help spread the HomeKit word and sell HomeKit-capable accessories much more rapidly than other forms of tradition marketing could ever hope to muster.
SEE ALSO:
Here are all the devices that are compatible with Apple’s HomeKit – May 31, 2017
How to configure your 4th-gen Apple TV as a HomeKit hub – January 10, 2017
The best products for building a smart home with Apple’s HomeKit – November 10, 2016
DDoS attack: Apple’s HomeKit for a safer smarthome – October 24, 2016
Awesome. I’m retiring and just purchased a place in Yucca Valley. The thing is, I won’t be there for a year as I want to take the next year for some remodel work and to furnish it. It is totally empty right now, only having a stove.
So, from the ground up, I want to start integrating homekit as much as possible as I go along.
Purchased property at a Point Roberts, Washington for getaways now and primary residence in retirement in about 11 years. I plan on replacing the current structure closer to retirement and want a fully automated smart home, so I have been watching this space for a while.
So far I have been using El Gato Eve products.
Wow. Point Roberts is way out there. Great getaway place. I’m looking for a getaway place, probably not for a permanent structure but someplace to take the RV for mini trips. Looking on the North Coast of California. I’m actually starting to look along the coast of WA. I loved the drive down the coast.
I got an alexa to experiment. 2 compatible plugs. Turning lights on and off for now is slightly amusing. I’ll have to check out El Gato.
I went on my honeymoon to Vancouver. Long story.
Just saw this at Apple Store Liverpool.
None of it worked – failed messages all over the screens of the iPhones that were supposed to be demonstrating it and the TVs were switched off.
Clearly, some bugs to be worked out…
Not a good idea to iron out bugs in a public store…
So exactly how many decades before we can use and control stuff from a Macintosh? It had Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, most of them sit at home and are in standby when not in active use.
Like millions of people, some of us never touch our iOS devices when we have a Mac available.
Angela decided to showcase Apple products in Apple retail stores. Genius! How about someone with real think different vision in that position.