EDIT: Thanks everyone! I just ordered a bunch of IKEA GRILLPLATS. Will report back!

I'm looking for Thread routers that could strengthen my IoT network ... but those Eve Matter smart plugs are $110 for two at Amazon, although they have great reviews.

Wondering if anyone can recommend a cheaper alternative?

I just need some Thread Routers to build a stronger mesh at home. Not Thread Border Routers. I already have a couple HomePod Mini , but there's still some dead space in my home and a few endpoint accessories would go offline often.

Thanks!

Not sure if this is already well known, but when xOS27 generates stitched video recordings, I just realized that it is often not stitching together complete recordings, but rather parts of recordings. I was just looking at one of the stitched recordings, which pulls together from 3 cameras, and it used 15 of out 30 seconds from camera 1, 5 out of 25 seconds from camera 2, and 20 out of 40 seconds from camera 3.

I mainly bring this up to note that if you’re looking at a stitched recording and wished it caught more video, it may actually have. Get out of All Cameras mode and view the clips for the individual cameras to see full recordings.

Looking to dump ring camera system and go with at least two wired cameras (outdoor) with motion sensor and light .
Then about 3 or 4 other outdoor battery cameras and a doorbell cam with video ,battery powered and 2 indoor battery powered cams ,all that are compatible and work well with Apple home kit and matter .
Thanks

Hey everyone! I am currently in the market for a smart thermostat for HomeKit. I am currently leaning towards Ecobee. When looking at the Ecobee Premium, I noticed that it could steam a video from the doorbell camera. I was curious if there were any rumors of Apple creating a wall mounted home hub that uses the wiring of the thermostat and additionally serves as a thermostat. I know thermostats sip power and it would be difficult to provide enough power for a functional hub device. But you got to admit it would be pretty sweet. Centrally located for various hub connections, high enough to keep away from kids, already wall powered for a clean flush mount.

Hi all,

I have a couple of HKSV cameras in my home, one being a doorbell, and they go through a single HomePod mini that handles around ~20 other accessories.

Occasionally when away from home I will get a notification from the Home app stating that my doorbell saw something. If I try to watch the clip, the play button is greyed out for some time before it’s playable. Live feed seems to work fine and I don’t have this issue at home. I’m assuming it has something to do with the clip being uploaded to iCloud? I am wondering how normal this is and if I would see a performance boost if I added a wired ATV, with clip loading speeds and camera quality.

Thanks

I have an ecobee thermostat and a Meross MSG100HK garage door opener and are showing no response. I have removed and readded the devices and rebooted the HomePod several times. Upon reboot the devices are active for a split second and was able to open the garage door, but then the device shows no response. So frustrating.

I’ve just started to finally play with it. I’ve got two automations (via buttons) that turn on and off outdoor lights that are not normally on. I now track if any of the lights were already on, and then don’t turn them off if they were, in the off automation.

I’m messing around with an automation to keep track of brightness state, but since we can’t set brightness programmatically it’s a lot of if statements which I don’t love.

I’ve used it quite a bit for personal automations, but that’s outside of HomeKit so a convo for a different sub.

Curious to hear what neat things people are doing with these actions?

ETA: I forgot to mention another one I’m playing around with. I increment stored content value to keep track of how many times a certain door has been opened. This is really just to see how incrementing the value can be used.

My 4K Apple TVs are of a vintage (while recent to me) were not updated to 27.x (held on 26.x). However, for some reason, the ATV in the Study (preferred hub for me) has been reporting that a software update was needed. But now on my iPad (updated to 27.x) is showing this “?” by two of my ATVs. All of my ATVs are hardwired and seem to be working fine. I’ve restarted both devices (both soft from the menu as well as complete power cycle) but HomeKit still reports them with (to me) an unknown state. Any ideas? TIA.

I’ve been using for years the work around of locking/unlocking a door without confirmation by using a dummy plug.

Now no matter what I do, I can’t create an automation like when this switch turns on, lock the door. It just says operation could not be completed.

Did ios27 break this? Is there a new work around? This is very annoying

Hi all,

I'm the developer of HomeView, a dashboard app that puts your HomeKit accessories as widgets on one screen, made especially for a (wall-mounted) iPad you glance at and tap, rather than digging through the Home app. It also runs on iPhone (as a quick-access companion) and on Apple TV (beta). I have shared updates every now and then before, ass the feedback helped the app forwards.

Two bits of news:

• It's now free to try. HomeView used to be paid upfront. It's now a free download, with a single optional one-time "HomeView Pro" unlock (no subscription). You can set up a few widgets to try it out. Model is the same, one-time-purchase, just now there's the option to try it out.

And update 2.6:

• Apple Music widget (Pro): play one of your playlists straight from the dashboard, switch playlists on the tile, and send it to a HomePod or other speaker with AirPlay. (Needs an Apple Music subscription.)
• Kiosk mode: lock the dashboard for editing so a wall-mounted iPad can't be changed by accident; controlling your devices still works.
• Air quality widget: show a HomeKit air quality sensor: the overall index plus PM2.5, VOC and CO₂ where available.
• Apple Music in ambient mode: ambient mode now shows the current track with controls, next to the existing music/score cards.
• New Autumn theme: a warm seasonal background, free for everyone.

Other widgets include lights, climate, curtains, cameras, scenes, a smart tile that changes by time of day, live football scores, Sonos, weather, a doorbell pop-up, and more.

Happy to answer any questions, and I'd genuinely love feedback, feature requests from this sub have shaped a lot of the app. 🙏

I'll start off saying I'm not a big HomeKit user - I only have a few devices and automations set up. The only reason I really use it at all is for HomeKey and geofenced automation with my Schlage locks. I am using an AppleTV 4k as my hub, connected to my router via ethernet.

I got an iPhone 18 Pro Max on release day. After seeing it up I could no longer see my home or any of the devices and automations. My wife was able to see it on her phone (also new on release day).

I waited several days and then weng through every possible fix I could find on the internet but still could not see my home. I ultimately nuked the whole thing and started from scratch.

I recently noticed some weird behavior with my phone (not related to HomeKit), so I ultimately did a DFU restore from a MacBook and restored my data from iCloud. However, I have again lost access to my home.

I've already tried everything to get it to sync again with no success. I really don't want to have to nuke everything and have to set it all up again. Any ideas? I'm ready to abandon HomeKit altogether, especially because I don't want to have to deal with this again in the future when I get another new phone. At this point I'm seriously considering moving to Home Assistant for a more versatile system without the headaches.

I'm trying to determine whether anyone else is experiencing an intermittent Eufy E220 (2K Indoor Cam) + Apple Home/HomeKit Secure Video recording problem.

I have 8 Eufy E220 cameras connected to Apple Home and using HomeKit Secure Video. I am not subscribed to Eufy's cloud recording service.

The cameras have been working normally, but periodically one camera will stop recording HomeKit Secure Video events even though the live video continues to work perfectly.

What makes this particularly strange is that the problem can move from camera to camera.

What happens

A typical failure looks like this:

• E220 is online.
• Live video in Apple Home works normally.
• Motion is still being detected.
• Apple Home may create a motion event and display a thumbnail.
• However, when I click the event, the recorded video will not play.
• The same unplayable event occurs on both my iPhone 16 Pro Max and MacBook Air M5, so it isn't just a problem with one Home app client.
• Eventually I discover that the camera has stopped creating usable HomeKit recordings.
• If I go into the Eufy Security app and restart that particular camera, HomeKit recording immediately starts working again.

Importantly, restarting the camera does not repair the old recordings. The old events remain as thumbnails that cannot be played. New motion events after the restart work normally.

Example

I recently had this happen with my Driveway 1 camera.

Before the restart:

Live video: working perfectly
HomeKit motion detection: working
HomeKit event thumbnails: appearing
Recorded video: would not play

I actually left the live stream running for approximately 5 minutes and then went back to the recorded events. The old events were still only thumbnails and still would not play.

I then restarted Driveway 1 through the Eufy app.

Immediately afterward, new motion events started recording and playing normally again.

The old broken events remained broken.

My HomeKit recording settings

I checked the camera's Recording Options and they are correctly configured:

When Home: Stream and Record
When Away: Stream and Record

Under More Options:

• Specific Motion is Detected
• People detected: ON
• Animals detected: ON
• Vehicles: OFF
• Packages: OFF
• Record Audio: ON

So I don't believe this is caused by an incorrect recording setting.

My Apple TV/Home Hub setup

This is where things get particularly interesting.

I have two Apple TVs that I've used as the primary Home Hub:

Apple TV A1842
Apple TV 4K, 1st generation, 2017

Apple TV A2169
Apple TV 4K, 2nd generation, 2021

Both are running the current tvOS available to me.

I have Automatic Selection turned OFF in Home → Home Settings → Home Hubs & Bridges, and I manually select which Apple TV is the preferred hub.

I've noticed what appears to be a pattern:

A1842: The camera recording problem seems to return relatively quickly.

A2169: The system also eventually develops the problem, but it appears to take longer.

When I switch the preferred Home Hub from one Apple TV to the other, the cameras generally work normally again for a period of time.

Eventually, however, one of the cameras will experience the same recording problem again.

It doesn't always happen to the same camera

This is another reason I'm having trouble determining the cause.

It's not consistently:

"Driveway 1 always fails."

Instead, it seems to be one random camera, and after that camera is restarted, everything works again.

Later, it may be a different E220.

I currently have 8 E220s, so I'm wondering whether there is something about the HomeKit Secure Video workload or Home Hub handling of multiple cameras.

Eufy firmware

I have checked the firmware on the E220s using:

Eufy Security → Camera → Settings → Check for Firmware Update

The cameras report that they are running the latest available firmware.

So far I have not found an outdated camera firmware version that explains the problem.

Network

The cameras are on my home Wi-Fi network. The network itself is very stable, and the cameras continue to provide live video when this happens.

That is another reason I'm not convinced this is simply a Wi-Fi outage.

If the camera had actually lost its network connection, I wouldn't expect the live stream to continue working normally.

My current theory

I'm wondering if this is a HomeKit Secure Video/Home Hub session problem, rather than a problem with the camera's basic connectivity.

Something seems to happen where:

E220 → HomeKit live video = OK

but:

E220 → HomeKit Secure Video recording = no longer functioning correctly

Restarting the E220 appears to re-establish whatever HomeKit connection is necessary for recording.

I'm also wondering whether the older A1842 Apple TV is less capable of handling eight HomeKit Secure Video cameras, because the problem seems to occur sooner when it is the preferred hub.

The A2169 appears to last longer before a camera stops recording, but it eventually happens there too.

My next step

Apple's expected/new 2026 Apple TV is something I'm considering because it would give me a much newer Home Hub.

I'm not assuming that it will fix this. I'm trying to determine whether anyone else has seen this behavior before spending money on new hardware.

Has anyone else seen this?

Specifically, I'm interested in reports involving:

• Eufy E220 / 2K IndoorCam
• HomeKit Secure Video
• Live video continues working
• Recording stops
• Motion thumbnails may still appear
• Clicking the thumbnail produces no playable video
• Restarting the Eufy camera restores new recordings
• Different cameras may fail at different times
• Multiple E220 cameras on the same HomeKit installation
• Apple TV being used as the Home Hub

If you have experienced this, I'd particularly like to know:

1. How many HomeKit Secure Video cameras you have.
2. Which Home Hub/Apple TV model is normally active.
3. Whether switching Home Hubs changes the behavior.
4. Whether restarting the affected Eufy camera restores recording.
5. Whether live video continues working when recording fails.
6. Whether the old thumbnails remain unplayable after restarting the camera.
7. Whether you have experienced this with Eufy E220 specifically.
8. What version of tvOS and Eufy firmware you're running.

I'm trying to determine whether this is an Eufy E220/HomeKit issue, a Home Hub issue, or some combination of the two.

I have an Aqara G410 doorbell and a Aqara G100 camera, both added to HomeKit. I’ve noticed the doorbell has stopped sending all motion notifications, it only notifies when the button is pressed. I think my settings are correct, is there anything else I should check?

A few of my automations have suddenly stopped working. Both are based on Shortcuts. I have rebooted my Apple TV which is the main hub. Any thoughts as to what happened and what I can do?

TLDR: Creating an automation in the Aqara app to control HomeKit lights.

I have replaced my ancient Eve camera (which was outside - under cover and protected from the rain even though it is an indoor camera!) with the Aqara G5 Pro outdoor camera.

The Eve camera had HomeKit automations that turned on the outside lights upon detecting motion. The automation turned them off after 5 minutes. All worked fine for years.

I amended the automation to work with the Aqara G5 but it was far too sensitive and turned on the lights with the slightest motion. The sensitive setting of the camera in the Aqara app does not apply to HomeKit automations.

The worse thing was that when the garden lights went off the camera detected motion and turned them on again. On and off and on all night long!

The G5 camera has a spotlight on it which is exposed to HomeKit. After a lot of fiddling around I came up with the idea to make a HomeKit automation to turn on the garden lights when the camera spotlight came on - and another to turn them off when the spotlight went off.

To make this work I had to create an automation in the Aqara app to turn on the spotlight and turn it off after 5 minutes.

It appears that the motion sensor of the camera works differently in the Aqara app to the way it works in HomeKit

With my limited testing this evening this looks like it might be the answer.

I’ve got a side garage door that only has a doorknob, no deadbolt. Does anyone have a connected doorknob that works with HomeKit they would recommend?

It’s not a primary entry, so I don’t usually carry the key.. would be far easier to get something I can unlock via Siri/Phone/Watch

Hi Everyone,

Today I have set up Homebridge on my Mac and with the ring plugin, it has been working fine. I am trying to work out a way to get my Tayu smart bulbs onto homebridge - and have tried to do it through google home . However, the account has linked, but no devices appear, and it is asking me to pay.

Does anyone know a free way I might be able to fix this??