{"id":1170,"date":"2015-06-22T11:54:17","date_gmt":"2015-06-22T15:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/?p=1170"},"modified":"2015-06-22T17:07:28","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T21:07:28","slug":"homekit-and-my-connected-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/2015\/06\/22\/homekit-and-my-connected-home\/","title":{"rendered":"HomeKit and My Connected Home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Internet of Things isn\u2019t arriving fast enough for me, but I\u2019ve managed to jumpstart my Connected Home\u2019s entrance into this brave new world thanks to Apple\u2019s iOS HomeKit.<\/p>\n<p>What I have now using HomeKit is a preview of things to come, and I\u2019m hoping that iOS9 brings some improvements and refinement, as has been rumored by many who more actively follow the iOS ecosystem. And I\u2019m happy to play with what I have today, a somewhat fragile but working system that lets me control HomeKit enabled devices from multiple vendors both from my iPhone 6 and by voice command using Siri over my home network.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the top tier Home Automation and Control vendors like Insteon and Lutron, who already had bridges and addressable devices in the marketplace, are introducing HomeKit enabled bridges or have introduced them. Existing dimmer switches and on\/off switches should work with the new bridges, but battery powered devices like motion sensors most likely will not work. There may be support for motion sensors in iOS9, but it\u2019s not known if existing sensors will need to be replaced by a new HomeKit enabled sensor.<\/p>\n<p>HomeKit can control devices, scenes that control multiple devices, rooms, and zones, depending on the iOS app. You need to add\/discover a particular vendor\u2019s HomeKit enabled bridge and you\u2019ll need to add devices from a particular vendor using that vendor\u2019s app. Once devices are enabled, you can use any vendor\u2019s app to configure scenes, rooms, and zones, provided that the app supports this.<\/p>\n<p>There are only a few apps in the iTunes Store that work with HomeKit devices. Lutron\u2019s App is sandboxed and only controls Lutron devices. It does recognize Rooms created by other apps. It can create Scenes, but only using Lutron devices as HomeKit devices from other Vendors don\u2019t appear in their app.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"lutron scenes\" src=\"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/lutronscenes.png\" alt=\"lutron scenes\" width=\"600\" height=\"317\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Insteon\u2019s HomeKit enabled Insteon+ App has full HomeKit integration and no restriction on using other vendor HomeKit devices in scenes. I can include Lutron dimmers in scenes I create in the Insteon+ app.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"insteon scenes\" src=\"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/insteonscenes.png\" alt=\"insteon scenes\" width=\"600\" height=\"329\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>While I don\u2019t have any Elgato devices, I actually like the Elgato Eve app best because it is easier for me to read. The Elgato Eve app also lets me add\/edit scenes and rooms.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"elgato eve\" src=\"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/elgatoeve.png\" alt=\"elgato eve\" width=\"225\" height=\"400\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve got Hey Siri enabled on my iPhone 6. And I\u2019ve got a charging cradle in my Bedroom where my iPhone spends the night. Siri integration with HomeKit is not perfect, but it\u2019s pretty cool to tell Siri to run on a light or a scene, as shown in my video.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  id=\"_ytid_76822\"  width=\"1290\" height=\"726\"  data-origwidth=\"1290\" data-origheight=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MR3mD8Dwf_o?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=0&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>To control devices over cellular or while away from home, a 3rd generation Apple TV with firmware 7+ is required. I found that I had to move my Apple TV from Ethernet to Wireless for this to work. I also had to sign out and in to iCloud a few times. HomeKit works remotely using iCloud integration. Siri commands over cellular didn\u2019t work, but using the actual Apps on my iPhone worked fine (with a short delay).<\/p>\n<p>All in all, this is great fun for an over the bleeding edge geek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Internet of Things isn\u2019t arriving fast enough for me, but I\u2019ve managed to jumpstart my Connected Home\u2019s entrance into this brave new world thanks to Apple\u2019s iOS HomeKit. What I have now using HomeKit is a preview of things to come, and I\u2019m hoping that iOS9 brings some improvements and refinement, as has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[47],"tags":[276,311,275],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":""},"post_excerpt_stackable":"<p>&nbsp; The Internet of Things isn\u2019t arriving fast enough for me, but I\u2019ve managed to jumpstart my Connected Home\u2019s entrance into this brave new world thanks to Apple\u2019s iOS HomeKit. What I have now using HomeKit is a preview of things to come, and I\u2019m hoping that iOS9 brings some improvements and refinement, as has been rumored by many who more actively follow the iOS ecosystem. And I\u2019m happy to play with what I have today, a somewhat fragile but working system that lets me control HomeKit enabled devices from multiple vendors both from my iPhone 6 and by voice&hellip;<\/p>\n","category_list":"<a href=\"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/category\/connected-home\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Connected Home<\/a>","author_info":{"name":"Barb","url":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/author\/barb\/"},"comments_num":"0 comments","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pvFKI-iS","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}