Using Apple Homekit with your Smart Home

What is Apple Homekit?

Homekit is a platform created by Apple for controlling devices within your home. The homekit app runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac computers and can control devices such as lights, shades, locks, thermostats, fans and much more. The Homekit platform also leverages the power of Siri, which allows you to control all of your devices using voice commands. Another great feature of Homekit is its ability to create what Apple calls, Automations. Automations make the platform very powerful by allowing a user to create sequences of actions based on events. For example, you can create an automation to arm the intruder alarm when you leave home or turn on the garden lights at sunset.

Why use Homekit?
The majority of professionally installed smart homes will use a smart home controller from a manufacturer such as Control4, Savant or Crestron, to name but a few. These systems, in most cases, have their own proprietary app, which rarely allow you to add devices or create automations or even control devices with your voice (at least without your smart home installer first setting up the specific commands). Using Homekit opens up a world of customisation for the user and provides additional benefits of Apple's iOS software, such as first-hand notifications, control of devices from the lock screen or from Control Centre, automations based on an iPhones location and even remote control of a home without paying a subscription service.

What works with HomeKit?

There are many off-the-shelf products that you can add to Homekit without employing a smart home installer. One of the most popular products on the market is the Phillips Hue smart light bulb, which works well with HomeKit. But this raises a common question, "Why can't I just use those everywhere in my home?" and the answer would be that you certainly can. However, the issue with smart light bulbs is that they suffer from reliability issues due to their reliance on a Wi-Fi network, especially in larger homes. For this reason, many professional installers tend to steer clear of such products and instead lean towards professional-grade lighting systems when a customer requests smart lighting. So do professional-grade smart home systems work with HomeKit? Well, it's complicated, some do with restrictions and caveats, but unfortunately, most systems don't integrate at all with HomeKit.

The best of both worlds

So what can we do to bridge the gap between a professionally installed smart home and Apple's HomeKit platform? Well at CEAV, we have a solution that can do literally this! A bridge of sorts that imports all of your smart home devices such as lighting circuits, locks, thermostats and more directly into your HomeKit app, allowing you to create automations, control devices with your voice and customise until your heart's content.

If you already have a smart home or lighting system and would be interested in integrating it into HomeKit or even if you're starting from scratch and would like us to design a HomeKit-compatible system for you, get in touch today and one of our home technology professionals we'll be more than happy to help you.