How to add HomeKit items to Control Centre in iOS 14
Get fast access to your smart home stuff at any time. Jason Cross reports
If you’ve got smart home gear hooked up to HomeKit, you know how convenient it is to control from your iPhone or iPad. But it’s also a little annoying to have to leave whatever app you’re in, then find and launch the Home app, just to check the status of something or turn off a light. In iOS 14, Apple has made this a lot easier. You can add HomeKit to Control Centre to see a selection of your favourites right there, one swipe away, without having to leave the app you’re in. Here’s how it works.
ADDING HOME ITEMS TO CONTROL CENTRE
To add HomeKit items in Control Centre, you’ll need to flip a toggle in Settings.
1. Open the Settings app.
2. Tap Control Centre.
3. Toggle the switch that says Show Home Controls.
USING HOME ITEMS IN CONTROL CENTRE
To access Control Centre on an iPhone that has Face ID or an iPad, swipe down from the upper right edge. To access Control Centre on an iPhone that has a Touch ID, swipe up from the bottom edge. You’ll find a couple rows of frequently used Home items there along with a button labelled Home Favourites. You can see the status of those devices, or tap that Favourites button to look at all the devices you have set as Favourites in the Home app. See their status, toggle them, or long-press on controls to see more options.
CHANGING HOME FAVOURITES
Accessing your HomeKit gear from Control Centre requires them to be in your list of Favourites. If the device you want isn’t there (or if your Favourites list is has stuff you don’t want in it), you’ll have to go into the Home app to fix it.
1. Open the Home app.
2. Tap Rooms at the bottom of the screen.
3. Swipe left or right between rooms until you find the device you want to change.
4. Long-press on the device to bring up its detailed controls.
5. Tap the gear icon in the lower right to access that device’s settings. 6. Look for the Include in Favourites toggle.
You’ll have to add devices to your Favourites in order to access them from Control Centre, and you can trim your Favourites list to remove items you don’t want cluttering it up.