Controlling your devices

How to take full control of your smart home

So far we’ve followed the process of adding devices to the Home app, and assigning them to specific rooms within your home. But, of course, you also need to be able to control how all your devices work. Different types of devices will provide their own specific controls – such as brightness or colour controls for lights, or temperature and timer controls for a thermostat.

The Home app provides controls for all your HomeKit devices and it’s a great time-saver, as it means that you don’t have to use several separate apps from a range of different manufacturers. You can change the brightness – and even the colour – of your office lights, adjust the volume on your HomePod, and turn off the heating all from within the Home app. And, of course, for even greater convenience you can use Siri voice

commands to control these devices without having to lift a finger.

IN THE ZONE

But controlling individual devices is just the start of what HomeKit can do, and the real strength is that it also allows lots of different devices to work together all at the same time. The Home app actually provides several options for controlling multiple devices together. We’ve already seen that the Home app lets you assign devices to particular rooms, but it’s also possible to create ‘zones’ that include a number of different rooms. This way you can quickly activate a set of security cameras in the ‘outside’ zone, or turn off all the lights in the ‘downstairs’ zone when you go to bed at night.

The latest version of the Home app in Ventura and iOS or iPadOS 16 also groups similar devices together, such as lights, speakers or security devices. This is useful for getting a quick overview of a particular set of devices, such as a security system that includes several cameras and motion sensors that may

be spread across different rooms or locations within a home or other building.

SET THE SCENE

The real power of HomeKit lies in the ability to create ‘scenes’ and ‘automations’, which provide more precise control over groups of devices in your smart home. Scenes are relatively simple, as they primarily focus on turning devices on or off.

The Home app has a number of scenes already built into it, including Good Night which quickly turns devices off, such as your lights and the heating thermostat. There’s also Leave Home, which can use Location Services on your iPhone to recognise when you leave the building, and can then turns lights off or perhaps activate a security camera.

You can also create your own scenes, such as a Party scene that changes the lighting and even lines up a music playlist as well. However, this is still a straightforward matter of simply turning devices on or off at the same time. Automations are a bit more complex, as they allow your devices to react to specific triggers or conditions – perhaps turning a security camera on at midnight, or turning on a light if the security camera detects motion when everyone is away from home. This extra level of complexity can be a bit daunting – especially as automations were poorly explained in earlier versions of Home – but the app now suggests one of its presets whenever you add a new device to help you get started. Scenes and automations also work well with Siri, as you can control groups of devices with simple voice commands: just saying “Hey, Siri – Party!” will start your playlist and get the disco lights flashing.