Control Your Home

HomeKit is an Apple framework that allows home automation devices from different manufacturers to work together the with iOS, tvOS, and watchOS in the form of Siri commands and the Home app (Figure 74).

Apple maintains a list of compatible HomeKit devices. If you’re looking at a home automation device, check for the HomeKit badge.

Establish HomeKit Hubs

HomeKit typically works over your home Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth. But a hub allows you to control your devices when you’re outside your home Wi-Fi network. It’s also required for automations—see Automate Your Home.

There are two types of HomeKit hubs: a third- or fourth-generation Apple TV, and an iPad running iOS 10 or later.

If your Apple TV is signed in to the same iCloud account as your iOS devices, it acts as a HomeKit hub automatically, as long as it’s connected to power and your home network (the Apple TV can function as a hub even while asleep).

Your iPad running iOS 10 or later can function as a hub if it’s signed in to the same iCloud account as your other devices, and if you tap Settings > Home and enable Use This iPad as a Home Hub. The iPad must remain powered and connected to your Wi-Fi network in order to function as a hub. (If you leave the house with your iPad, it will cease functioning as a hub until you come home!)

Set Up Your Home

In the Home app, a home is the top-level container, which encompasses all the other categories that I cover. A home can be a home, an outbuilding, a second home, an office, etc. For most practical purposes, a home is distinguished by a Wi-Fi network.

The Home view in Home lets you control your homes, listing your favorited scenes and accessories on the screen, which you can rearrange by tapping the Edit button. The Home view also shows the status of your devices. Here are some tips to help you get started:

• Initial setup: When you first launch Home, what you see depends on your existing HomeKit setup, if you have one from previous versions of iOS. Don’t stress about these choices—you can easily change them later.
• Add another home: Tap the Home Settings icon and choose Add Home. Give your home a name and choose a photo for it.
• Switch between homes: If you have multiple homes, tap the Home Settings icon and choose a home from the menu.
• Rename a home: From the Home Settings screen, tap in the text field below the Name header at the top. Enter a name and tap Done.
• Invite people: You can invite other iCloud users to control the devices in a home. On the Home Settings screen, tap Invite and enter a contact’s email address or tap a Family Sharing member.

  If everything goes right, the recipient should receive a notification on their iOS device(s). Once they accept the invitation, they will have access to the home from the Home app.

• Edit people: Once another person is added to your home, they appear under People in the Home Settings screen. Tap that person’s bubble to see switches to allow or disallow remote access or allow them to edit HomeKit settings. You can also tap Remove Person to remove that person from your home entirely.
• Change wallpaper: From the Home Settings screen, scroll down and choose either Take Photo or Choose from Existing. Apple provides only a couple of generic home photos, so if your home is photogenic, you might want to take your own picture.
• Take home notes: Near the bottom of the Home Screen, you can insert notes that will be seen by everyone you share that home with.
• Remove a home: At the bottom of the Home Settings screen, tap Remove Home and then Delete.

Manage Rooms

A room is, well, a room in a home. It makes the most sense to set up HomeKit Rooms to align with actual rooms in your house.

The Rooms view shows all the accessories and scenes associated with a room. Home starts you with a Default room that cannot be removed, but can be renamed. I like to use it as a sort of staging area for new accessories, but I don’t associate it with any rooms in my house.

You want to set up a room for each room in your home that has HomeKit devices installed, for two reasons. First, it makes organization much saner. Second, when your rooms are properly configured, you can give Siri commands like, “Turn the Living Room lights off.”

• Create a room: Tap the Room Settings icon, and then tap Room Settings if need be. Choose Add Room, and then give the room a name and assign a picture to it.
• Switch between rooms: Swipe on the screen in the rooms view or tap the Room Settings icon and choose the room from the list.
• Adjust Room settings: Tap the Room Settings icon and then tap Room Settings. Choose a room, and from there you can rename the room, change the room wallpaper, and remove the room.

Add Accessories

An accessory is an actual HomeKit device in your home, like a light bulb, lock, garage door opener, or thermostat.

In the Home or Rooms view, tap the plus button in the upper-right corner and tap Add Accessory. The app prompts you to enter or scan the HomeKit code for that device, which can be found on the device itself and/or on the package (Figure 75). After scanning the code, follow the onscreen prompts to set up your accessory.

Sometimes, you need to set up your HomeKit device with the vendor’s app before you can use it with Home. For example, if you buy a set of Philips Hue smart light bulbs, you must use the Philips Hue app for initial setup and pairing with HomeKit. Check the documentation of your HomeKit devices for details.

To move accessories between rooms, switch to the Rooms view, press an accessory, and tap Details. Tap Location to see a list of rooms you can assign the accessory to.

Control Accessories

By default, Accessories are visible only in the room to which they’re assigned, but you can favorite an accessory to have it show up in the Home view and Control Center—see Discover Control Center Functions.

All Accessories are available in the room that you assigned them to, but Favorite Accessories are available in both the Home view and Control Center. To favorite an accessory, go to the Rooms view, press an accessory, tap Details, and enable Include in Favorites.

No matter where you find an accessory, controlling it works the same:

• Turn an accessory on or off: Tap the accessory.
• Adjust an accessory: Touch and hold an accessory. The adjustments you see will depend on the accessory. With a smart light bulb, there’s a brightness slider and a Color button. Tap the Color button to choose from a color palette. To better fine-tune the color, tap Edit in the middle of the palette, which lets you choose from a full range of colors and white color temperatures.

These accessory actions can be performed only in the Home app:

• Rename an accessory: Press an accessory, tap Details, tap the name, and edit it as you see fit.
• Group accessories: You can group multiple accessories so that they function as one. Press an accessory, tap Details, and choose Group with Other Accessories. Check the other Accessories that you want to group with that accessory, name the group, and tap Done.

  Those accessories disappear from the Home and Rooms tabs, replaced with the group you created.

• Ungroup Accessories: Press a group, tap Details, and select Ungroup Accessories. The individual accessories will return to the Home and Rooms tabs.

Manage Scenes

Now that you understand the basics of homes, rooms, and accessories, it’s time to learn about scenes, which are the most important aspect of home automation.

Scenes are combinations of HomeKit commands. For example, I might have a scene called Chill Out that turns my living room lights blue, lowers the brightness to 40 percent, and turns the thermostat down.

Like accessories, favorite scenes are available from the Home tab and Control Center.

• Create a scene: From the Home or Rooms view, tap the plus button and choose Add Scene. Depending on which accessories you have, Home suggests preconfigured scenes for you, such as Good Morning and I’m Home.
  1. To create a more advanced scene, tap Custom on the New Scene screen. Give the scene a name and select the accessories to include in the scene, if they’re displayed. You can add more accessories by tapping Add Accessories.
  2. Adjust any of the accessories in the scene just as you would normally, by pressing the accessory. Tap Test This Scene to see a preview.
  3. If you want easy access to the scene, enable Show in Favorites.
  4. Finally, tap Done.
• Activate a scene: Tap the scene to enable it. Tap it again to turn it off.
• Modify a scene: Press a scene in the Home or Rooms view and tap Details.
• Set Favorites: Enable Show in Favorites in the Scene Details screen.

Control Your Home with Siri

Your careful setup of homes, rooms, accessories, and scenes pays off when you want to control those things via Siri. Here are some examples of things you can do:

• Turn accessories on and off: “Turn off every light in my office.” “Turn on the living room.” “Turn the bedroom lamp off.”
• Adjust accessories: “Dim the kitchen lights.” “Set the bedroom lights to 30 percent.” “Brighten up the living room.” “Turn the living room green.” “Turn the bedroom blue.”
• Activate scenes: “I’m home.” “Set scene Dinner Party.”

For the basics of using Siri, refer back to Speak to Siri.

Automate Your Home

If you have a compatible hub (refer back to Establish HomeKit Hubs), the Automation view lets you automate your home devices with triggers.

Here’s a look at your trigger options:

• People Arrive/People Leave: With these triggers, you can turn accessories and scenes on and off when people arrive at or leave a location, such as your house. You can also set the automation to trigger during certain times of the day.
• A Time of Day Occurs: This trigger simply enables and disables accessories and scenes based on the time of day. For example, you could set your bedroom lights to turn on when it’s time to wake up in the morning.
• An accessory is Controlled: This trigger activates a scene or accessory if an accessory is triggered. For example, you could set your living room lights to turn on when the front door is unlocked.
• A Sensor Detects Something: To use this trigger, you need a HomeKit-compatible sensor like a smoke alarm, carbon monoxide detector, or environmental monitor. This trigger could literally save your life—for example, you could have your house lights set to red and full brightness if carbon monoxide is detected.

Your automations are listed in the Automations view. Tap one to adjust its settings.

You can enable or disable an automation, adjust the trigger conditions, change how accessories and scenes are affected by the automation, and delete the automation.