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It would be nice if more hardware vendors got out of their own way and supported HomeKit. It’s not perfect, at all, but it is far ahead of the typical vendor pr
by dpeck 6y ago
It would be nice if more hardware vendors got out of their own way and supported HomeKit. It’s not perfect, at all, but it is far ahead of the typical vendor provided software experience.
- vinay427 6y agoHomeAssistant or HomeBridge (?) work great for this. At least with HA, nearly every reasonably communicable smart device can be finagled into cooperation and HomeKit sees them all through a bridge. I even have a "legacy/real" home alarm system wired up with it along with smart switches with flashed firmware to avoid OEM app issues.
- LASR 6y agoI've been running Home Assistant (https://www.home-assistant.io/hassio/ https://www.home-assistant.io/hassio/) The default configuration has an integration for HomeKit such that it bridges devices that do not have dedicated support. For example, I can control my Google-only through my iPhone. Highly recommended, especially the appliance vm image or docker (hassio)
- hanklazard 6y agoSame, long-time user. On the topic of local API wifi thermostats, I’ve found that Venstars work very well with Home Assistant. No cloud required. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/venstar/ https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/venstar/
- Maximus9000 6y agoDoes homekit automatically mean the device has better cyber security?
- shagie 6y agoOne of the key things with HomeKit is that its on the local network. For Google or Amazon home automation, it goes from device to AWS or GCP, to the vendor cloud portal, back to the home device or bridge to those devices. In my eyes, that "out and back on a different channel" is the problem. Home kit devices can be controlled without an internet connection (I've just tested this) though the voice control of them still does the speech recognition in the cloud. So, the home kit (via HomePod) does device to cloud to device to home automation. I would contend that this approach is more secure - the control of the home automation devices only comes from the HomeKit hub rather than the internet. How much more secure that is - one can debate.
- cormacrelf 6y agoOne missing part is whether the devices will talk on the public internet anyway. Some of them will, but at least with HomeKit you can firewall their traffic, I guess. Most home routers wouldn’t be able to do that though. Moreover, does any Apple server going down mean you can’t use your lights? Like what happened a few weeks ago with Google, someone I know had their entire house behaving like a poltergeist.
- chrisbolt 6y ago> Moreover, does any Apple server going down mean you can’t use your lights? As GP mentioned, HomeKit works when your internet is down. It only uses Apple’s servers for out-of-home control.
- shagie 6y ago> Moreover, does any Apple server going down mean you can’t use your lights? Like what happened a few weeks ago with Google, someone I know had their entire house behaving like a poltergeist. My setup is: * HomePod as the HomeKit hub * Hue bridge (no external connection) I disconnected the network at the modem - the entire house was without an internet connection for the duration. Neither HomePod Siri nor an iPad Siri was able to control the lights via voice. However the iPad and various Macs were able to control the lights. The only thing that HomeKit uses the cloud for is the voice recognition of things spoken to Siri.
- supergeek133 6y agoThis is because your device is either required to have a MFI chip in it, or you have a common device already in the home with a MFI chip that it can communicate with. My company was one of the first to have a HomeKit thermostat, and the biggest barrier was the hardware requirement.