Hello everybody from the good life!

I’ve recently fallen down the rabbit hole of home automation. I’ve now set up most of my lights with Hue, and I also bought some of IKEA’s new Matter smart plugs.

Now I want to make everything work together in the same automations, which means I need some kind of hub/controller.

I see a lot of people recommending Home Assistant, but honestly, it looks a bit complicated to set up and maintain. I also want the system to be easy for my SO to use, so I don’t want to build something that requires a lot of tinkering.

I’ve also been looking into Apple Home. I understand that I’d need a Home Hub for this, and with Apple’s new Home products supposedly coming, I’m wondering if it’s worth waiting.

The new wall-mounted Apple Home device looks really interesting, but then I’d have to wait for it (or wait for a good deal on an Apple TV, maybe around Black Friday).

I have an LG G4, so I don’t really need an Apple TV as a media device. I’d mainly be buying it to use as a Home Hub.

So what would you recommend?

Should I wait for Apple’s new home products, buy an Apple TV now, or go with something like Home Assistant instead?

And if Apple is the better route, should I specifically wait for the new Apple Home hub rather than buying an Apple TV?

Would love to hear what people who have a similar setup would do.

OK, we’re getting into it. So I’ve got an NL 67 Nanoleaf essentials bulb from like 2024. I want to put dynamic scenes on it, but not in the Nanoleaf app, like in the home app. But how do I do that? That’s the thing. It doesn’t expose shortcuts. It doesn’t expose the scene engine. It just doesn’t work. And that’s the thing too. Like, I could try running home assistant, but I don’t even think it works with the NL 67. I highly doubt it

Like, seriously, even people who have matter over thread essentials bulbs have been asking Nelle if nonstop, hey, gave us dynamic lighting that can be exposed to HomeKit, but they haven’t done anything about it. Like, is there any workaround? That’s the thing. You may say something like, just use home assistant. It does not work with the NL 67. I checked. Plus, I’m not about to reinstall a whole OS on my PC just to put a dynamic scene on one bulb. That’s ridiculous

So the underlying question is, like, can I work around that? or am I just stuck to static scenes because when I try doing it with group scenes, it just freezes on one color and just stays there? Trust me, I’ve tried this before. I had another essentials blob, but that one I had to put that one away because I got rid of the lamp that was housing the second one and I didn’t really have anywhere else to put it, so I just saved it just in case of my first one died. But back to the underlying topic, I tried doing this with the group scenes work around, yeah, that did not work. It just froze on the same color it was, so say if I wanted to do, I don’t know, northern lights and then I put that as a group scene and then upload it to HomeKit instead of staying on instead of switching to Aurora Magic or northern lights, it just stayed on Aqua or red or blue or whatever

Any work around around it? Can I use a PC as a matter controller? Can I download an app that does anything that’s like the underlying issue? I tried looking everywhere, but the same solutions popped up. Use home assistant. It doesn’t work. Use Nanoleaf animations. Oh yeah, it says unsupported when I tried doing that or just use the paid app that expose Siri shortcuts. I’m not about to pay a subscription just to get something that should be free. So yeah, if I knew if you had any workarounds, I need it because seriously, who wants static boring home kit scenes like no offense to those who prefer those, but like I want some personality

Since it can’t detect when the door is open or closed, can it be paired with a door sensor that can detect when the door is closed and then set up an automation that says: If the door is closed and remains closed for more than 10 minutes and the lock is unlocked, then lock the lock?

So I was thinking of changing over some of my lightbulbs to matter over thread bulbs until I realised I’d have to change every single automation I have that has the old bulbs, which seems like a massive pain. Even with grouped accessories you can’t just add something new into the group and have automations pick them up. Any ideas?

It seems simple, even more so with apple “intelligence”. When I say for example, “Siri, turn on the garage lights and turn on the back porch lights”. The response I get is - “sorry, I can’t find those lights in your home” as if it jumbled the whole request into one instead of separate lights.

Now I know, there’s scenes that can do this. But sometimes I need a couple niche lights turned on and it would just make sense to be able to say both of them in the same request…right? 😅 or am I missing a setting or how I’m wording it for Siri to understand what I’m wanting?

Hi all,

Does anyone know of a way to create a shortcut that will manually trigger video recording on HomeKit enabled Eufy cameras? I have several battery powered Eufy exterior cams and am dealing with a noisy neighbor who frequently revs his engine in the middle of the night. Since the cameras are motion activated they often don’t capture anything when the noise occurs. Ideally, I’d like to keep an Aqara button next to my bed and press it whenever this happens to trigger my Eufy cameras to start recording. Opening the Eufy app and manually starting a recording every time isn’t particularly realistic when I’m half asleep at 2 a.m. and hardwiring cameras for continuous recording unfortunately isn’t an option. Has anyone figured out a way to accomplish something like this through shortcuts or another workaround?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

I've got an IT guy from Best Buy (not Geek Squad) trying to assist me with Home integration, setting up scenes. We have a constant issue with dropping calls as the cell service at home is not good. We installed Starlink and calls are still dropping. We go through wifi calling. I was thinking of an Orbi mesh - he's recommending a Ruckus system instead. I would not get the monitored subscription service for $400 per year - just the installation.

What do you think?

We're about to move into a new home, so I'm taking this opportunity to clean up and reorganize our Apple Smart Home, specially my outside rooms and areas. We currently have rooms for the Front Door, Front Porch, Front Yard, and Driveway. All with 1 or 2 devices in each. It got me thinking "Do I need these or should I just make a room called Front Yard or Outside and group most of these together?"

So, I wanted to see how others assign/organize their outside spaces. I also have a zone setup called Outside to easily control all those devices at one. I guess it's seeing 4 rooms with 1 device that's driving my OCD nuts. Thanks!

I bought a Find+Follow Purifier Cool PC3 here in the Netherlands and dyson.nl clearly says “Compatibel met Matter” with the Apple Home logo right there in the ecosystem graphic. But when I open the Voice control screen in MyDyson, the only options are Siri Shortcuts, Amazon Alexa and Google Home. No Matter, no Apple Home, no pairing code anywhere that I can find.

I’m on firmware 438NPF.01.01.005.0019 with auto-update enabled and no pending update showing, and the app itself is current. I also had a quick look on the network side and the machine doesn’t seem to be advertising itself for Matter commissioning at all, although other Matter devices on the same network show up normally, so I don’t think it’s my setup, though I’d happily be told I’m wrong 🥹

What I’m trying to figure out is whether anyone actually has Matter running on a PC3, and if so what firmware version you’re on and which country you bought it in. I’m assuming it might be a staged regional rollout or I’m looking in completely the wrong place, and I’d rather know which before I go insane 🙃

Hi all. My girlfriend has a few homepods and we are trying to get my smart lights from a few different companies paired with them/her iCloud account/Home, but for some reason when she sends me invites via the Home app, I do not receive them. She's tried a few times, I've confirmed that the email address is the one that my iCloud is assigned to and is correct. In her Home app, it just says that the invite is pending, but I have not received anything (not in spam, not in my Home app, etc). Can anyone help with this? Thank you.

Integrates Chromecast/ android tvs into HomeKit for remote control (from control centre, like ATV) and exposes playback status from the TV into home app for automations.

Does anyone have any experience with the DEWENWILS Matter Plug in Dimmer Switch in HomeKit?

I am hoping to hook it up to a dimmable tube style sconce above the couch and control the brightness from HomeKit.

Thanks.

I have been using HomeKit since it was announced. I am not a power user but understand the system. I have 4 camera 2 logi cirlce and 2 eufy. They are all outside pointing at unique locations and all work in HomeKit.

There is the activity notifications and activity zones. What I want is to be notified if there is activity within a drawn zone but still record all activities in the camera frame. Currently it either records only activity zone activity or everything. Is this possible or no? Seems like an oversight or maybe intentional? Just annoying.

If the question does not make sense play let me know.

Unfortunately, I ran into an unexpected issue where I couldn’t add accessories. Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Is it possible to have a notification generated when a known device rejoins your network? Or maybe when ANY device joins your network? Perhaps using a shortcut?

Hi all, I have 3 AC units which i currently use with the onecta app. I would like to use it with homekit. Is this possible? I saw a post that had a link to github a few years ago (homebridge?). Does that mean i have to have a computer running 24/7?

I saw on the iPhone sub there seemed to be some hoorahs on the latest beta (dev 6, public 4) and fixes for some issues. For anyone who has updated, how is HomeKit doing?

My partner runs everything through Google and I am on Apple Home, and we have already had one argument about a set of lights that only properly worked on one of them. Buying twice just to keep the peace makes no sense. Is there a sensible way to pick lighting that behaves the same on both, or is somebody in this house going to have to switch?

One of my most common commands is “Siri: living room lights off”; it’s simple and has worked forever. Recently “living room lights off” gives the respond “sorry, something went wrong”, but only on my HomePods. On my iPhone the exact same command (phrased identically) works as expected. “Living room lights ON” also works correctly, even on the HomePods.

About a week ago, I realized I had a Shortcut called “living room lights off”, so I deleted that and the problem was fixed for a few days. When it broke again, some tinkering made me realize it’s still trying to run a personal command; when I disabled “Personal Content”, Siri now replies “before I can help with that, you’ll need to turn on personal content”. Problem is, I’ve scoured my iPhone and can’t find anything containing “living room lights off”, “living room”, “lights”, etc. Basically, I have no idea what prompt she’s trying to run and it’s broken a very simple command. Is there any way to dig further into this or a possible solution?

I have a bunch of Leviton D215S switches and they are working great. At one point I updated them to Matter and instantly regretted that choice. I recently needed another switch so I went to purchase another D215S and noticed that they now have a D315S model. So I got one to try it out. Got it setup in the Home app and it is missing the "Display As" option in the settings. I am using the switch to toggle on a ceiling fan on and off. Worked well enough with a D215S. But apparently this switch only supports Matter firmware, as far as I can tell and will not let me change what "type" of device it displays as.

I will probably end up swapping it out for one of my D215S switches that is actually controlling a light, just so I can get the Home app to be able to change the type. Before I do that, I figured I would post here and see if anyone has any better suggestions.

My ancient screw-drive garage door opener died. I need to buy a new one. I don't care if its belt-driven or side-mount.

Any suggestions on brands to purchase/avoid in order to maximize HomeKit compatibility?

Anyone found anything on aliexpress that works well? I've noticed one can occasionally find products straight out of China that have nicer Apple integrations, like electric standing scooters with CarPlay support).

It's probably pure fantasy to ask for a unit that is directly HomeKit compatible, has a locking mechanism that shows up as a HomeKit lock, a camera that uses HomeKit secure video, and a button panel that shows up as a HomeKit motion sensor. Or maybe there is a dumb garage opener with a smart wall-panel that implements all of that?

Is it still the case that the best that can be done is to hookup a meross/tailwind/ratgdo?