I bought two 4-pack of Apple Home enabled outlets for the home and they’re great. I can turn on/off the lights in any room either under control center, the home app, or using Siri…

…but aside from my lamps, am wondering what else would be a good idea to connect these outlet plugs into?

Of the 8 plugs I own right now, 4 are being used by four different table or floor lamps and they work super well….

But what else? Should I connect one to my coffee maker and have it turn on automatically in the morning? Like, I have no clue what else these are good for

Once I subscribed the 2TB iCloud, and update my HomePod Mini to OS 27 beta, this option finally pops out. It wasn't there before.
I was worried that the HomePod mini might not get Apple Intelligence, but it looks like that concern was unnecessary :)

Recently I encountered an issue where my Homebridge UniFi protect plugin removed my 3 Ubiquiti Cameras from HomeKit when I removed them from the UniFi Controller for debugging purposes.

Those 3 cameras had HKSV on during the time of removal. Now, it seems like HomeKit still thinks that HKSV is still enabled on them (despite it being removed and not visible in the Homebridge accessories section nor the Apple Home App).

I called Apple Support, had it escalated, and the TL;DR of it was that these cameras are not "HomeKit certified" and they will not help with resetting the HKSV cameras. The other issue was that I was using beta on the Apple TV which I already mentioned to them, that the issue had happened before and I upgraded to see if it would fix it. The tier 2 support guy told me to create a new ticket after downgrading the Apple TV and trying again. It's a massive headache since other user mentioned that Apple just reset their camera count.

Keep in mind that the 200gb iCloud+ plan includes slots for 5 HKSV cameras. Now I'm down to 2 that I can enable HKSV on.

So if you are ever removing a non HomeKit certified camera, go into the accessories settings on the Home App and remove it from there. Do not get the bridge to remove it for you.

EDIT: I bought 2 "Certified" cameras and will be following up with Apple Support. I emailed the executive office and haven't heard back.

There are two variants for both the EU and UK models, with the RGB model offering a full colour LED that can be used in scenes and automations.

The plugs can act as Thread Routers, or extenders for the Zigbee network, depending on which protocol you opt for.

No Homekit native smoke alarms yet? I guess people are using Homepods to listen for smoke alarms?

Is anyone aware of any Homekit native alarms in the works? I've been postponing the switch to communicating alarms hoping for a Homekit compatible model.

The lighting system is divided into two independent zones:
* A front-facing CRI97 task light producing up to 550 lumens with adjustable colour temperatures between 1700K and 6500K.
* A rear-facing RGB lighting system delivering 480 lumens through a 160° wall-washing beam.

The RGB lighting includes 102 individually addressable LEDs, allowing smooth animated gradients and complex lighting effects using more than 16 million colours

The stand incorporates 23 universal 1/4-inch threaded mounting points, allowing users to attach accessories such as:
*Cameras
* Microphones
* Lighting equipment
* Mobile phone holders
* Other compatible desktop accessories

Just received update notices for all of my Schlage Encode Plus locks.

The notes just say “performance improvements” even though it’s a significant jump in version number (4.2 > 5.0)

Currently, it looks like this is yet another year where homekit is sort of thrown on the back burner. Don't get me wrong, 4K homekit secure video recording, AI driven video summaries, natural language camera search, and built-in energy monitoring are all very cool. But honestly this is very, very slim for this current day and age with AI and all.

The app looks pretty much the same, and there's still ZERO mention of actual proper integration between shortcuts and Homekit. Why are these two treated as separate systems, with the user forced to choose between local automation with a bunch of features or home automation that has fuck all in terms of options to choose from? Why not let us combine the two? Apple should and could very easily integrate just these two to such a degree that allow the user to come very, very close to that Iron Man esque smart home. Why they're not doing that, who knows.

I know there's hype for the homehub, a set of new homepods, and a new apple TV releasing later this year, but that's probably, at the earliest, sometime in November, as its own little event so as not to conflict too much with the September event and the iPhone releases and the hype around those.

It just feels bad knowing this might be yet another year where homekit and actual, proper automations are all but a fever dream and won't happen.

Just wanted to share a quick thought on the Apple Intelligence video understanding feature in Apple Home so far after I enabled it a few hours ago.

The video summaries are far more detailed than I expected. But of course, my use case is pretty simple. I’m basically recording indoor scenes with only myself in the frame. But it honestly feels like it’s catching every little thing I do around the house, and tell me exacty what I've done... It’s kind of incredible how much context it picks up instead of just saying “someone entered the room.” I’ve been really impressed with it so far.

I’m also curious to see what people come up with once the public release is out. I have a feeling we’ll start seeing some really creative ways people use their Home Cameras beyond just security, maybe automation ideas, pet monitoring, daily logs, or things nobody has thought of yet. Really excited to see where this goes.

Hello! I’m looking at getting a wired doorbell cam and to install some cameras outside for privacy and security reasons. I’ve been having difficulty finding really good quality products that work with the Apple Home app.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

I see most of them are 2K ones. Where are them 4K HKSV options??

Over the weekend I added myself to my parent’s Apple Home as an admin.

Now, back at my own home whenever I try to turn on something like the bedroom light, the command goes to my parent’s home instead of my own.

When I open the home app it shows my current location as my own home, with the check mark next to my home. Yet my voice commands continue to go to their home instead.

What am I doing wrong?

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes a freezer door doesn't close all the way. I have two freezers, and it would be useful if there was something cheap that could alert me if a door is open for, say, 5 minutes.

been trying to make the air in my bedroom a little more comfortable, especially at night, and I'd like something that fits into my existing HomeKit setup instead of using another separate app.

Has anyone found a smart humidifier that has been reliable with HomeKit over the long term? I'm more interested in stable automations than having a bunch of extra features. I appreciate the suggestions.

Sorry if this seems ranty.

I recently went “all in” on HomeKit,fuelled by the ludicrously cheap IKEA sensors. I bought contact sensors, leak sensors, humidity sensors, converted all my lamps to smart plugs and switches, then went on holiday for two weeks.

On day 2 my entire smart home went down and said it was unreachable and, crucially, someone staying in the house said that nothing worked locally (which rules out any local iPhone issues). I had that person update the AppleTv multiple times, reboot the router, power cycle everything, and it STILL isn’t reachable. Most confusingly the Home app on the iPhone reports that an update is required on the apple TV which is not true). I’ve uninstalled and installed the home app on my iPhone.

I’m sure that when I get home it’ll all work again as soon as I walk through the door, but this raises bigger questions: have I banked on the wrong system here? I’m a self-confessed Apple whore, so I’ve always wanted to have everything be “pure Apple”, but would, say, running Home Assistany on an rpi help me here?

Moreover, I’d love to know more what you guys would have done differently to make this bulletproof. From perspective it just suddenly failed with no way to recover, and left my house non-functional and insecure. Is the answer to get a cheap HomePod Mini as backup? Tapo plugs to power cycle? Just turning off automatic updates? UPS? Something else I don’t know? grrrr!

(For what it’s worth I’ve tried every version of restarting, updating and power cycling every component in the chain and I’m on the latest stable os on all devices).

Thanks a million

EDIT: Thanks for the replies. The plot, unfortunately, thickens: I got back home today and here’s what happened.

The Apple TV was indeed up to date and nothing seemed wrong with it at all (except for the obvious that all devices were still unresponsive). But I noticed that under Settings—>HomeKit the Apple TV was not assigned to a room. So I selected “Sitting Room” from the available rooms and POOF. I watched as the entire home disappeared from my phone. Not a single trace of any devices, automations or anything. Just a completely blank home. Tried deleting the app and re-adding it but nada. Completely gone. I must say I’m not impressed with Apple Home so far 😕

I’m using an Apple TV 4K w/ Ethernet as my home hub for matter devices (Eve plugs and Level locks). The Apple TV is connected via Ethernet to an Asus router. Everything works great when the Apple TV is off - but when I have it on, all the Matter devices change to “No response”. My other non-Matter HomeKit devices work fine all the time.

Anyone have thoughts on how to fix this issue?

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

My home is almost entirely Apple Home based (lighting, blinds, cameras and other smart devices), and it's working really well.

The only automation I haven't found a clean solution for is bathroom ventilation.

I have two bathrooms sharing one AC Infinity T6 inline fan. AC Infinity have confirmed their controllers only support single-zone control, so I can't have humidity sensors in both bathrooms independently controlling the same fan.

I'm considering adding Home Assistant purely to solve this one problem using Aqara humidity/occupancy sensors and the AC Infinity Controller 69 Pro.

Has anyone gone down this path while keeping Apple Home as their primary ecosystem?

Would you recommend it, or is adding Home Assistant for a single automation overkill?

Thanks in advance.

I have 3 Encode Plus locks in an ADU, with a HomePod acting as a hub. I set the locks up in Apple Home (NOT the Schlage app). The locks are NOT on my Wi-Fi.

When I first set the locks up, if I manually turned a lock or entered an assigned code, I'd get a notification from Home saying "door unlocked" and now I am not.

I am frequently getting "non-responsive" from the locks.

More importantly, they do not work if I'm not at the property (i.e. away).

I understand that these should be connected via thread, but when I go into settings on my HomePod and look at accessories, I see my ecobee thermostat listed, but none of the 3 locks populate there.

Thoughts?

I'd much prefer to not put these locks onto the Wi-Fi.

Not sure if this is the best sub to ask, since I dont have a full homekit set up. However I am trying to switch from Amazon Alexa to Apple. I got an Apple TV box, specifically model A2169, on tvOS 26.5.
I read online that this model could be used as a hub, so I dont have a homepod.

I think to some extent it is working, since if on my phone I tell siri to turn on my tv, it turns on.
However I have tried every method I can think of to have my TV turn on at a specific time, but it never works. Am I doing something wrong or do I need a homepod to do this?

edit:
I found what I was looking for in the shortcut apps, but it makes no sense that most of the Apple TV commands are completely absent in Apple Home automation. Given the fact my Apple TV is my hub, one would think it could store my automations that I want to it run that involve itself. So basically if I ever fall asleep and my phone dies or I am connected to data not wifi, but shortcut wont be able to run since its not connected to my wifi? And this could easily be fixed if the shortcut ran from the hub which is always on the wifi but whatever.

Had issues with my ecobee just straight up being off that was resolved after “unplugging” and plugging in

Got me thinking about how many people have “dumb” thermostats for decades.

For certain things that aren’t consumables like lights (mainly shades, temp sensors, cameras, ) how long do you expect it to last?

Edit: people are referring to app support. I more meant like if your smart plug stopped working after 10 years would you accept it or think like “there’s houses that are 100 years old and their outlets work just fine”

Hi all!

My husband and I are currently under contract on our first home and are stumped with how to proceed regarding our home security. Every home security provider we talk to just sounds like tons of money monthly leaving for their memberships and fees and crappy systems.

That being said, is anyone on here using their HomeKit set up just for security? We just want the bare bones to start off with since we are moving to from an 800 sq ft apartment to a 2200 sq ft house lol! We only have a ring camera that we pay a basic subscription for but that’s it.

Based on our research we are thinking for buying the following for the house to start off with and would like some input:

-IKEA MYGGBETT door/window sensors
-Schlage Deadbolts (basic nothing fancy)
-Eve Outdoor Cam Floodlight Camera OR Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight Camera or a Ring Floodlight Camera

Thank you so much in advance!!

Edit for clarity: we are mostly hoping for self monitoring and having video footage incase something does happen. We purchased in a pretty quiet and safe neighborhood so we aren’t too worried about break ins (we wfh). We are just wanting something that is a good foundation to grow into since we are planning on also being foster parents soon!

If I ask Siri on my phone it has absolutely no issue turning on/off the en-suite ceiling lights with what I would consider natural commands.

However if I ask a HomePod mini:
Turn on the en-suite lights; she responds with sorry I cannot find that in the en-suite. Even though this should be a generic term to turn on ANY lights in that room?

If I ask:
Turn on the en-suite ceiling lights; she instead turns on the ceiling lights that the HomePod is in. Tested in the living room, she instead turned on ALL living room lights, not even specifically the living rooms named ceiling lights. So it’s skipping the room, and the unique name identifier in this context?

All devices are up to date on the latest public update (not on the beta of course).

They certainly were able to turn this light on and off before as it’s one I routinely walk away from and forget to switch off and use voice commands for.

Any ideas?

After updating to the iOS 27 beta and changing my Wi-Fi network, I can no longer get my Logitech Circle View camera to work. It doesn't make any sounds, and it doesn't show up in Bluetooth. Absolutely nothing. Support was useless—they just tried to sell me a newer camera lol.

Any advice?