If you’re thinking about starting your own Apple smart home, but not sure where to begin or what Apple home could even be. Well, this is A proper beginner’s guide to Home Kit in 2023 and 2024, so Whether you’re new to the whole smart home world in Home Kit and want to start buying your own smart home devices to build up your own smart home or if you just want to learn more about Home Kit, then this video is for you.
In this video, we will break down exactly what Apple Home Kit is through the home app and show you how it works and some fun ways to automate your smart home. At about the end of this, you will have a better understanding of what a home Kit is How it works, and be able to start your own smart home.
So, what exactly is a home kit?
Home Kit is a smart home platform designed by Apple that allows you to control compatible smart home devices like smart bulbs or smart plugs with Apple devices. This includes the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and Siri. It’s like Amazon has Alexa and Google has the Google Home platform. Home Kit is also a framework that allows third-party companies to create smart home devices that can be controlled by Apple devices by becoming Home Get certified.
What is a home kit device?
Speaking of Home Kit devices, what is a HomeKit device? Well, there are two types of devices that you need to know about. That’s native and non-native or bridged devices.
1. Native Device
A native home device means that it works with Apple HomeKit and the Home app right out of the box. Any device that works with Apple HomeKit has a logo or the new Apple Home badge on the box. This tells that the device inside the box is a native HomeKit device.
Many different types of devices can work with HomeKit, including cameras, lights, outlets, and sensors. Blocks and more. Apple has a small lineup of their own smart devices as well, including the Apple TV and the Home Pod and the Home pod Mini. You will need at least one of these Apple devices in your home.
There are also devices that support Apple Airplay, which allow you to share videos, photos, music and more from your Apple devices to your Apple TV or compatible speakers, along with the ability to mirror what’s on your screen to a bigger screen.
2. Bridge Devices
Some native devices require a bridge or a hub to get the device to work with a home kit. A common example of this is the brand Philips Hue. It helps you link smart bulbs and other smart devices that don’t natively work with a home kit.
The Philips Hue bulbs talk to the Philips Hue bridge and allow the bulbs to work with HomeKit automatically. Now for a device to work with HomeKit natively, it does have to be certified by Apple and undergo A strict and extensive certification process. Native home kit devices are more expensive but also more secure.
3. Non-Native Smart Devices
Now there are some types of devices that are not supported in HomeKit. General this would include appliances like fridges, ovens, smart displays, and vacuums which is where having non-native devices come into play. A non-native smart device does not natively work with HomeKit, but with a third-party bridge, it can support Apple’s HomeKit.
This includes Google devices, ring products, vacuums, and more. By using a third-party bridge like Home Bridge or the Starling Hub. These third-party bridges are often cheaper than native Home Kit devices, but they are not Home Kit certified and not approved by Apple. So, they still do work in the home kit, but you will see a message in the home kit saying that it’s not certified and may not work well.
How do all these devices connect?
How do these devices connect to the Apple Home app? Well, there’s Five different protocols that a device can use, starting with the oldest,
1. Bluetooth
Bluetooth is commonly used for pairing wireless devices like headphones or speakers to your phone, but this protocol is not great to use with smart home devices. It’s an older connection type and does not have a long connection range, often leading to slow response times, and is very unreliable.
2. Wi-Fi
This is the most common connection type. A Wi-Fi device joins the same network as your other Wi-Fi-enabled devices like phones, tablets, TVs, and more. This is a much wider connection range though. Because of this, it can congest your network, especially if you have a lot of devices, and can slow down other devices that are on your network. And if you don’t have a strong or more up-to-date router then it can cause more devices to fall off the network, though not always.
3. Zigbee
The third connection type is Zigbee, and this is often used in devices that require a bridge. The bridge connects to your home Internet over Wi-Fi or Ethernet and the specific. Devices connect to the bridge, so well-known brands like Acara and Philips Hue use Zigbee.
Devices that require a hub are often more reliable than Wi-Fi-only connected devices since they don’t have to compete for a signal with your other wireless devices and connect directly to their respective Ridge.
4. Thread
Then there is Thread, a protocol designed specifically for smart home devices. Thread devices create a mesh network between each other, and each device helps extend the thread signal all throughout your house, so the network becomes stronger as you add more thread to it.
With devices you will need a thread border router like an Apple TV 4K or a home pod, otherwise, the connection drops to a slow Bluetooth connection. There are A lot of Thread-enabled devices on the market today from brands like Eve, Nano leaf, and more on the way.
5. Matter
Then there’s this new smart home standard that you’ve probably heard of recently, Matter. The matter is not a specific wireless protocol like Wi-Fi or Thread. Matter supports Wi-Fi and Thread. Without getting too technical, Matter is a language that all smart home devices speak to each other that allows the devices to work with all smart home platforms.
Thread or Wi-Fi is the mode Some brands already make smart devices that work with all platforms, like Mayors or Philips Hue. But some brands only make devices that work with specific platforms. Like Eve just worked with Apple HomeKit, but now with Matter, devices can work with all platforms right out of the box.
Meaning you could buy an Eve smart plug and use it in the Amazon or Google ecosystem, something that could not be done before and now. Devices that did not support Home Kit before now can work with HomeKit like the Google Nest thermostat and smart speaker.
Apple HomeKit App
Previously, you wouldn’t need to have A hub like the Strong hub to get it to work with Home Kit. All these devices can hub like a strong herb to get it to work with HomeKit. All these devices can be controlled from the free Apple Home app available on all Apple devices that comes preinstalled on any phone or you can’t download it from the App Store.
The Home app is One single central app that you use to control and manage all the responding devices from various companies instead of using multiple apps to control your smart home. So, if you have smart bulbs from Philips Hue, and smart plugs from Maris and Central Bakara, instead of using multiple individual apps to control these devices, you can use just one app.
The Apple Home app controls them all, however Sure, we would still recommend downloading the manufacturer’s app for all your devices because you won’t get all the features in the Apple Home Kit that you would get in the manufacturer’s app. That later on, here’s a brief walkthrough of the Apple Home app and how it all works.
So, once you And at the Home app, you will see three tabs at the bottom. Home, Automation and Discover.
1. Home
Let’s start off with Home. This is the main view to see the status and control of your devices. At the top is the status view. This is where you can quickly access and check the status of various categories of devices starting with climate.
This includes things like thermostats, temperature and humidity sensors, and more. Here you can see if you tap on the temperature. You can see the temperature of a room from my thermostat and one of my home pods.
Some people have a small plug that controls a fan that’s there as well. You can configure what device appears here as well if you don’t want to see the status of every sensor.
Next is lights. So, you can see any lights or smart plugs that are labeled as lights that are on and you can tap to turn them on or off. Then you have security, which includes SMART. Books, door sensors and cameras.
Next is speakers and TV’s, which show you anything that’s playing on an Apple TV, A HomeKit TV, or a home pod or another Airplay-compatible speaker. Then there’s water for leak sensors.
Next, you have a section for cameras, and this is any security camera that you may have. You can scroll across to view them all and make this towel here bigger or smaller and tap the arrow to view all your cameras and tap one to view the live feed.
Below the cameras are scenes, a These are great for controlling multiple devices at once. For example, if you have a good night scene that turns most of your devices off in your house and turns on specific devices in the bedroom and the home pods will automatically play music.
These scenes can be run in multiple ways. You can use them in automation by tapping them here on the app and with Siri on the home pod. Under the scene is your room and this is an area where the device is located. So here in my house, I have a couple of rooms. The devices that you see are devices set to show on the main view. This may not be all the devices that you have in the actual room.
If you tap the name of the room, it takes me to the specific room, and here’s the status to at the top of the devices specifically in this room. You can see the cameras in this room. Run your scenes and see all the devices that are in this room separated by categories like lights, lights, and more.
There are also zones which are a group of rows. So, you could have a zone called the main floor that includes the kitchen room and the living room, and you can use cereal to control all the devices in that zone. Like saying turn off all the lights on the main floor to control A device.
There are a couple of things that you can do. You can tap the icon on the left to talk with the power if the device supports power on and off. Or you can tap to the right of the icon, and it’ll open the settings of the device.
here you can control A specific set The features you get in the home app do vary by device. For example, if it’s a light, you can’t control the power of the brightness and the color if you have it. Color bulb. A small plug would have power on and off, a dimmer switch would be a light and can adjust the brightness, and TV’s would have the ability to change the input.
Now, unfortunately, not all features of a device are supported in the Apple Home app. A good example of this is smart cameras. If you have a smart camera with the ability to paint tilt or move around the room, the directional control feature is not supported in the Apple Home.
2. Automation
As you can tell, the ability to control your smart home from just your phone is truly incredible, and you could take your experience even further with automation. There are some crazy automations that you can create that are truly magical.
Now let’s look at how you can use automation in your smart home. So, what exactly is automation? Well, at its core, automation is essentially automatically controlling the smart devices in your home to make your life easier. A basic example is you can put a connect sensor on a door and have a smart lot in your room.
So, whenever the door is opened, the sensor will tell the light to turn on without you having to flip A switch. So here in the home app, the middle tab here A trigger is something that happens to start the automation, and there are four different types of triggers.
Each of these triggers has their own conditions, and conditions are optional restrictions that the automation will check for whenever it’s running in automation. One of the most personal favorite automations of people is whenever they get home, the door will automatically unlock, and all their lights will turn on.
Now, for automation to run, you will need a Home Kit Hub, which can either be an Apple TV, a Home Pod or Home Pod Mini or an iPad. Keep in mind that a HomeKit hub is different than a hub or a bridge from a manufacturer.
Like with books, a Home Kit Hub is used specifically inside of the Home Key ecosystem and used for Automations. A hub from a manufacturer allows the device to work with HomeKit. A Philips Hue hub cannot be your Apple HomeKit hub.
Now you can still have an Apple smart home without a home GitHub. Just won’t be able to run any automation or control any devices. You can still control your devices but only whenever you are physically in range of the devices.
So, you may be thinking what home kit hub should I get? Well, the Apple TV 4K with Ethernet is the most reliable since it supports Ethernet and thread, and a hardware connection is always better than a wireless one. But a home pod is a great second option as well.
I would definitely avoid using an iPad because for one an iPad is not supported as a hub with the new home architecture update that does not support the home kit app. Fortunately, if you have multiple hubs, like multiple Apple TV’s and multiple home pods, then the home app will automatically choose your hub for you, and you cannot manually change it.
So, if you have a wired Apple TV and a wireless home pod, then the Home app may choose the wireless device over the more reliable wired hub for whatever reason. So, at that point, it doesn’t really matter which device your home get hub is.
The choice really comes down to do you want a streaming device or a smart speaker. And finally in the Apple Home app is the third tab, the Discover tab, which basically explains how Home key works, what’s required, and all the different types of devices that you can buy.
3. Discover
There are some customization and features in the HomeKit app as well. You’re able to rearrange or even resize these tiles if you’d rather have some tiles be bigger or smaller in either the room page or in the Home page. The home view layout can be changed as well, so if you want to have your cameras at the bottom and set at the top, then you can do that.
Or the rooms can be arranged in any order that you like. The wallpaper of each room or the homepage can be changed with some premade options, or you can upload your own photo. Unfortunately, these Wallpapers do not always sync across devices. So, if you say wallpaper on your iPhone, it will not sync to the iPad. You must change it manually on each device.
There’s also the ability to share your home with somebody. This could be a spouse, a family member, or anybody who likes to have access to control your devices, which sounds great, but there are very few restrictions when it comes to sharing.
You can’t choose specific rooms or specific devices that you want to share or not share. So maybe you’d want, say, a child or a guest to only have access to control devices in one specific room and no other devices in the house. Well, when it comes to sharing, it’s pretty much all or nothing.
There really is not in between. There are residents which is basically full access and then there is guests who is only allowed access to secure accessories like smart locks and no other devices
Privacy of Apple HomeKit
When it comes to building your own smart home. One important factor that you need to keep in mind is privacy. How well is your data being protected? Especially if you have smart cameras, you know who can see all my footage? Let’s look at how Apple specifically protects your privacy.
Apple is known for the strongest privacy and security, especially when it comes to camera footage. With Home Kit Secure video, which is Apple’s cloud recording for home cameras that will encrypt your footage from the last ten days on your HomeKit hub, then securely upload to your iCloud account and paid accounts.
With a home pod, you’re able to turn off the mic so Siri will only hear you when you. Press and hold on the top of the home pod. Some cameras now have physical buttons to turn off the camera or the lens can physically rollback for better privacy. If you have multiple Apple devices like an iPhone or an iPad, then the home key ecosystem is the ideal ecosystem for you.
Conclusion
Maybe you only have an iPhone and want to add more devices over time. Well, the great thing about Apple devices is they can all work together to provide a secure, easy-to-use and overall, the best experience. Like you’re able to control an Apple TV hands-free with just a home pod, or even pair multiple home pods to an Apple TV for stereo sound.
FAQs
What is Apple HomeKit?
Home Kit is a smart home platform designed by Apple that allows you to control compatible smart home devices like smart bulbs or smart plugs with Apple devices. This includes the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and Siri.
It’s like Amazon has Alexa and Google has the Google Home platform. Home Kit is also a framework that allows third-party companies to create smart home devices that can be controlled by Apple devices by becoming Home Get certified.
What are the main connection types of Apple’s HomeKit?
Well, there’s Five different protocols that a device can use, starting with the oldest,
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is commonly used for pairing wireless devices like headphones or speakers to your phone, but this protocol is not great to use with smart home devices. It’s an older connection type and does not have long connection range, often leading to slow response times and is very unreliable.
Wi-Fi
This is the most common connection type. A Wi-Fi device joins the same network as your other Wi-Fi enabled devices like phones, tablets, TV’s and more. This is a much wider connection range though. Because of this it can congest your network, especially if you have a lot of devices and can slow down other devices that are on your network. And if you don’t have a strong or more up-to-date router then it can cause more devices to fall off the network, though not always.
Zigbee
The third connection type is Zigbee, and this is often used in devices that require a bridge. The bridge connects to your home Internet over Wi-Fi or Ethernet and the specific. Devices connect to the bridge, so well-known brands like Acara and Philips Hue use Zigbee. Devices that require a hub are often more reliable than Wi-Fi only connected devices since they don’t have to compete for a signal with your other wireless devices and connect directly to their respective Ridge.
Thread
Then there is Thread, a protocol designed specifically for smart home devices. Thread devices create a mesh network between each other, and each device helps extend the thread signal all throughout your house, so the network becomes stronger as you add more thread to it. With devices you will need a thread border router like an Apple TV 4K or a home pod, otherwise the connection drops to a slow Bluetooth connection.
Matter
Then there’s this new smart home standard that you’ve probably heard of recently, Matter. Matter is not a specific wireless protocol like Wi-Fi or Thread. Matter supports Wi-Fi and Thread. Without getting too technical, Matter is a language that all smart home devices speak to each other that allows the devices to now work with all smart home platforms.
What is the function of home option in the Apple HomeKit app?
Let’s start off with Home. This is the main view to see the status and control your devices. At the top is the status view. This is where you can quickly access and check the status of various categories of devices starting with climate.
Some people have a small plug that controls a fan that’s there as well. You can configure what device appears here as well if you don’t want to see the status of every sensor. Next is lights. So, you can see any lights or smart plugs that are labeled as lights that are on and you can tap to turn them on or off.
Next is speakers and TV’s, which show you anything that’s playing on an Apple TV, A HomeKit TV, or a home pod or other Airplay-compatible speaker. Then there’s water for leak sensors. Next you have a section for cameras, and this is any security camera that you may have. You can scroll across to view them all and make this towel here bigger or smaller and tap the arrow to view all your cameras and tap one to view the live feed.
What is the discover option in the apple HomeKit app?
There are some customization and features in the HomeKit app as well. You’re able to rearrange or even resize these tiles if you’d rather have some tiles be bigger or smaller in either the room page or in the Home page. The home view layout can be changed as well, so if you want to have your cameras at the bottom and set at the top, then you can do that.
Or the rooms can be arranged in any order that you like. The wallpaper of each room or the homepage can be changed with some premade options, or you can upload your own photo. Unfortunately, these Wallpapers do not always sync across devices. So, if you say wallpaper on your iPhone, it will not sync to the iPad. You must change it manually on each device.
What is Apple’s Privacy in the HomeKit?
When it comes to building your own smart home. One important factor that you need to keep in mind is privacy. How well is your data being protected? Especially if you have smart cameras, you know who can see all my footage? Let’s look at how Apple specifically protects your privacy.
Apple is known for the strongest privacy and security, especially when it comes to camera footage. With Home Kit Secure video, which is Apple’s cloud recording for home cameras that will encrypt your footage from the last ten days on your HomeKit hub, then securely upload to your iCloud account and paid accounts.
With a home pod, you’re able to turn off the mic so Siri will only hear you when you. Press and hold on the top of the home pod. Some cameras now have physical buttons to turn off the camera or the lens can physically rollback for better privacy.