16 ms·

HomeKit

• twothamendment 12y ago
  I've been working on my own pile of HA scripts, hacks and controls - just for the fun of it. When I heard Google was buying nest and a security camera company and now Apple is jumping in - I'm glad I'll have my own. I don't care for either company to know exactly what is going on in my house. I do want my house to yell at me when the A/C is running and windows are open or the garage door is left open when I leave. There will always be a market for the big names, but this is one cloud I'll keep out of my hosue.
  • mkal_tsr 12y ago
    Exactly. Considering how much data they have on your phones, through web activity, etc, adding in direct home access with video, audio, and pattern recognition I'd imagine ... I wouldn't feel comfortable jumping in considering who may or may not be looking at that data / data-feed.
• sealthedeal 12y ago
  Now that Apple has released this, it is brand new technology to the world... (Sarcasm)
• tdrnd 12y ago
  This seems a lot like a response to Google's Nest acquisition. Google and Apple are rapidly moving in to an area with a lot of activity. There has been a recent surge of home automation startups and platforms like Revolv (http://revolv.com/ http://revolv.com/), SmartThings (http://www.smartthings.com/ http://www.smartthings.com/), WigWag (http://www.wigwag.com/ http://www.wigwag.com/). One of the problems they are addressing is how to marge multiple different home automation standards (Z-Wave, ZigBee, Bluetooth Smart, 6LoWPAN). Presumably the new Apple HomeKit will be based on a single standard, Bluetooth Smart, given the Apple / iBeacon rollout. There are also a bunch of more generic development platforms around, like relayr (http://relayr.io/ http://relayr.io/) and Thingsquare (http://www.thingsquare.com/ http://www.thingsquare.com/), that are targeting the device manufacturers directly. Will be interesting to see what impact Apple will have on the growth of this market, and the technology choices. Apple isn't always right (and neither is Google).
  • ceejayoz 12y ago
    Far more likely to be a response to Nest than Nest's acquisition.
    • durin42 12y ago
      Seriously. This has to have been in the pipe for more than 6 months.
  • United857 12y ago
    Yes, any mention of Nest was conspicuously absent during the WWDC keynote.
    • cr3ative 12y ago
      They went as far as to use a competing smart thermostat in their visuals - arguably a slight
      • X-Istence 12y ago
        They used the thermostat of a company that is partnered with them... not a slight. Nest isn't a partner, thus wasn't used in their visuals.
    • joeblau 12y ago
      Yeah, but Nest is hosting a 3 hour WWDC event tonight :).
• bennyg 12y ago
  Now if a ton more hardware manufacturers would start designing around automation - like a washing machine that automatically started drying your clothes next, and an app that could see how dry they are and ask if you want to keep going, etc. Or an oven I could preheat from my couch.
  • fatbob 12y ago
    There are already washing machines that dry clothes - they are common in the UK. There are also dryers that sense moisture - they are common in the USA.
    • bennyg 12y ago
      Sometimes you don't want to shrink your clothes and are looking for like 4% moisture left or something. There are tons of options left for more granular washing/drying of clothes that haven't been explored yet.
      • arethuza 12y ago
        Our dryer, which wasn't very expensive, has loads of options - including to what level of dryness you want clothes done to - there are about 10 levels all the way from "completely dry" to "still a bit damp" (not the terms used).
        • newman8r 12y ago
          yes but does it notify twitter??
          • cr3ative 12y ago
            Sadly not, but if it stops working, it will sing to your phone to tell it what is wrong: http://www.lg.com/us/support/answers/washers2012/smartdiagnosis http://www.lg.com/us/support/answers/washers2012/smartdiagno... I tried to use fldigi to decode this - sadly wasn't able to.
• intothev01d 12y ago
  favorite new feature by far. just awesome.
  • Navarr 12y ago
    Have you heard of Android@Home?
    • runako 12y ago
      Sounds interesting, but a Google search for me doesn't link to any product information that's recent. Could you share a link?
      • guyzero 12y ago
        That's the point. It's dead.
        • runako 12y ago
          Thats's what it looked like to me, but the prior poster seemed to have other data.
    • sv3nss0n 12y ago
      yes, and what has happend to android@home since it was presented more than three years ago??
• joezydeco 12y ago
  So is this another MFI-type program? Am I going to need to design in some Apple-authorized chip to enable the handshake? If it's bluetooth LE, can I expect to get decent range across the footprint of a home?
  • cma 12y ago
    The idea is if you switch to Android next time your contract with your carrier expires, you won't be able to open your front door anymore.
    • beat 12y ago
      Sure, you can open your front door. Just use a crowbar. Old-school hardware solution ftw! But yeah, one of the biggest problems - perhaps the biggest problem - that the Internet of Things faces is devices growing obsolete in short order. Connector conspiracies via proprietary APIs is just a subset of that broader issue. I wouldn't want a chip-only door lock for the same reason I wouldn't want a chip in my body.
• gergles 12y ago
  Here's hoping the "common protocol" they mentioned in the keynote is Z-Wave (strongly suggested base on Tim's use of the word "scenes" and the vendor list they put up) and not some Apple proprietary garbage. I'm still bitter about FaceTime being an 'open standard'.
  • jasonpbecker 12y ago
    Many are bitter about that, myself included. But it was an intellectual property issue, out of Apple's control.[0] [0]: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20236114 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20236114
    • judk 12y ago
      A patent (troll, btw) doesn't stop Apple from letting other clients connect to the network. Those clients could decide if they want to deal with the risk of infringement judgments. And Apple could have chosen to use one of many existing alternative session initiation algorithms.
  • JackWebbHeller 12y ago
    Is Z-Wave the same thing as a Zigbee mesh network? I know that's what Philips Hue uses.
    • michaelvanham 12y ago
      zwave and zigbee are similar but competing standards. the devices are not interchangeable but some home automation controllers support both. more info: http://m.electronicdesign.com/communications/what-s-difference-between-zigbee-and-z-wave http://m.electronicdesign.com/communications/what-s-differen...
      • klinquist 12y ago
        Yep. SmartThings supports both and has an open API.
  • deleted 12y ago
• untog 12y ago
  Shrug. Maybe I'm stuck in the past, but am I the only one not really excited for this kind of thing? Turning lights, air conditioning on and off isn't exactly a huge problem in my life.
  • endtime 12y ago
    Upvoted because I agree with you, but FWIW, I think (hope) that these trivialities are foundational steps for actually interesting automation.
  • general_failure 12y ago
    This is a very myopic view. Technology needs to advance in all fronts. Once these things are integrated as part of your daily life you wont notice them anymore and will take them for granted. These things will actually end up conserving energy in great amounts.
    • wwweston 12y ago
      > This is a very myopic view. Technology needs to advance in all fronts Citation, please. Or at least a clarification of what you mean by "advance." If you like, here's an example from writer Wendell Berry: "To make myself as plain as I can, I should give my standards for technological innovation in my own work. They are as follows: 1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces. 2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces. 3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces. 4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces. 5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body. 6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools. 7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible. 8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair. 9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships." http://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/berrynot.html http://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/berrynot.html (I don't expect everyone would necessarily share all these standards -- I suspect 10 in particular might be an issue for HN participants, for example --but they serve as an example and all of them have some merit.)
• quackerhacker 12y ago
  Wow!!! Whoever did the write up for Homekit had to have seen the MIT workaround for using Siri and an audrino to open a garage door. What a nice subtle "props," from Apple. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7542985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7542985
• tmuir 12y ago
  Does anyone have any shred of information about this at all? Since when do placeholder pages completely devoid of any details whatsoever make it to the top of HN?
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  • logn 12y ago
    On that page, there are links to both the API reference and a beta SDK.
    • smackfu 12y ago
      Unfortunately the software API isn't very informative. As you'd expect, it's a pretty high level model, with a home object, that contains rooms, that contain "accessories", that have actions. So it's sufficient to write a home control app, but gives no info on how iOS interfaces with the devices themselves.
    • bsilvereagle 12y ago
      To get to the relevant hardware information you have to have an Apple Dev account, unfortunately.
      • MrBuddyCasino 12y ago
        And where do I find that? All I see is a "please contact us" form for hardware makers. As someone who might want to do some experiments with an Arduino, this isn't helpful.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
• zmmmmm 12y ago
  Dear Apple, please for the love of god and the good of everyone, get together with Google and iron out a common protocol for this stuff. Don't make this one of your competitive technologies designed to fragment the world into Apple and not-Apple. Home automation is just dying to take off and there's a pile of gold for everyone if you just show a tiny bit of cooperation to get it started ... And you can all still sue each other afterwards if you like about the design of the light switches or whatever turns you on, but can we please just let the industry move forward first?
  • krschultz 12y ago
    I absolutely doubt that Apple will. Look at AirPlay. Look at AirDrop. Look at iMessage and Facetime. Even their original content formats were not all that portable. Some of those are for technical/licensing reasons, but many are not.
    • OverlordXenu 12y ago
      Yeah, but many devices support both AirPlay and DLNA or whatever else. I bet we'll see devices that support both Google and Apple. Or someone will reverse-engineer the API, like they always do.
    • aroch 12y ago
      Or at Google...Hangouts, their AIO messaging framework, is not either
      • wting 12y ago
        If you feel compelled to mention Google Hangouts, you should note that Google abandoned XMPP federation after 8 years (2005 - 2013) since other companies built walled gardens and leeched users instead. http://www.zdnet.com/google-moves-away-from-the-xmpp-open-messaging-standard-7000015918/ http://www.zdnet.com/google-moves-away-from-the-xmpp-open-me... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Talk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Talk
        • 12y ago
• julianpye 12y ago
  The critical part here is not standards and not even the usability from a graphical UI perspective, but who is put in control by the technology. Home automation has always faced this difficult hurdle. In most families, the lightswitch, a thermostat, etc belong to everyone who wants to use it and who is near it. I like Siri being in control, but she will have to be like a Butler that can bridge conflicts if this is to make it beyond single-person households into family homes.
  • r00fus 12y ago
    I don't see (initially) any conflict here except for where the switch or manual control doesn't allow for state-independent operation (e.g.: manual slider for dimmer switch). In that case, I imagine upgrades being required in order to play nicely (e.g.: [1]) In the case where all controls for a resource allow state-independent operation, it's simply resolved with "last-in wins", and possibly more elaborate permissions models as automation adoption matures. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Lutron-MAW603RH-WH-Electronics-Maestro-Dimmer/dp/B000BQMVXC http://www.amazon.com/Lutron-MAW603RH-WH-Electronics-Maestro...
• kosei 12y ago
  I hope this is not just handled through Bluetooth, but can be accessed via wireless as well. The idea of being able to leave air conditioning off in my house until I'm leaving the office, or to turn off all lights while outside of my home sounds incredible (or check to make sure that they're off). But if I have to be within my home to do everything, it'll turn this from a must-have for me to a nice-to-have very quickly.
• logn 12y ago
  HealthKit. HomeKit. I think we need to resolve the ethical and regulatory issues in our industry regarding government/marketing use of this data before it's prudent to use any product based on these technologies or similar ones.
• Frozenlock 12y ago
  Dear Apple, please use industry standards. BACnet is a ISO, ASHRAE and ANSI protocol.
  • CHY872 12y ago
    That's fantastic, but says nothing about the relative merits of BACnet. It's an industry standard, yes, as I understand it typical of a modern business unit, but that does not mean that it should be the one used by any new adopter. Indeed, BACnet's been around for so long now (and has such poor takeup in the consumer space) that one might wonder whether a newer protocol is necessary. As I understand it, BACnet has a number of drawbacks that make it unsuitable for this kind of thing. In particular, BACnet is not really plug-and-play (and is not designed to be), supports a relatively small number of transport protocols (one could imagine this Apple system eventually encompassing BlueTooth, ZigBee etc). Furthermore, it's not really a secure standard as I understand it - access to the WiFi network would essentially give control of all the devices. Current solutions aren't really much better, but it needs to be the primary concern (and I suspect that Apple have considered it). As one example, BACnet best practice is currently to have parts of the network that have to be in userspace (temperature sensors, door sensors (as opposed to lifts, aircon)) is to place them on separate physical networks. Even moreso, it's kinda usually implemented right above the link layer (which violates the hourglass principle, if nothing else), and there are issues that will come up in the near future with the alternatives (BACnet/IPv6 being an issue (i.e. most BACnet/IP devices will stop working as networks switch to IPv6)). BACnet is probably fine in the enterprise domain, where everything is installed at building construction time, there are people who manage this stuff for a living, and things like airgaps are desirable as well as necessary. In the home domain, it's at least overkill, and makes things incredibly difficult for users. It's entirely fair for Apple to go their own way. Trying to do a standards-based approach at the moment would be a horrendous idea - firstly I know a large number of companies to be trying to come up with their own solution at the moment, but secondly it would just end up being a standard by committee (with no real implementers). Let the competitors hash it out for a few years, and then standardise the best one.
    • Frozenlock 12y ago
• dmritard96 12y ago
  don't mean to spam, but can the opensource world just do something better? clearly apple is going to use some super apple only thing...and always will I tried a while back, and it looks awfully similar to what apple is doing... I use it all the time, manages my lights, my server, my IR electronics, through the UI or on a schedule. Has macros, etc. doesn't have the fancy detection features although at the time those were just starting to be talked about. Wouldn't be a hard extension. https://github.com/dandroid88/webmote https://github.com/dandroid88/webmote There are better ones out there, but my main point is that is some recent grad can hack this out on some nights and weekends, why are we waiting for apple , and verizon, and att and comcast and google....
  • burkaman 12y ago
    Well "we" aren't waiting, lots of people set this kind of thing up themselves with a few Raspberry Pis and software like the one you linked. The reason people wait for commercial alternatives is obviously ease of installation, support, etc., but there are also some features the big guys can offer that open source just can't compete with. Voice recognition is one, what if you want to talk to your TV or set your alarm while you're lying in bed? Open source speech recognition is passable, but there is no open source package that lets you do a hands-free "OK Google" trigger word type of thing. You'd have to pay thousands for that, in which case maybe you'll just wait for Google or Apple to integrate it into their home automation products.
    • dmritard96 12y ago
      http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/ http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/ http://jasperproject.github.io/ http://jasperproject.github.io/ agreed though on the nice packaging/ease of use. i'm hoping the hardware revolution can change that though.
• rblatz 12y ago
  From what I've seen, it looks like you will modify your existing iOS app to register with the HomeKit subsystem. This will give HomeKit hooks into the existing control functionality that is in the app. IE Nest will register that they have a thermostat and this is how to turn the temp up down.
• h00k 12y ago
  ... AllJoyn, anyone? https://www.alljoyn.org/ https://www.alljoyn.org/
• stripe 12y ago
  Building automation is already available for all your automation needs. Quite expensive but working well. I cannot see what Apple brings to the table other than control devices. Big automation vendors will probably just write a wrapper for that custom Apple protocol and be done with it.
• collypops 12y ago
  HomeKit, for the authentic "lock-in" experience
• chiph 12y ago
  It'd be interesting to tie this in with geofencing, so that I'd know I left the garage door open before I get too far away.