Hidden HomeKit
HomeKit has some powerful features – here’s how to find and make the most of them
The developers of the Controller For HomeKit app (see right) introduce it by saying: “HomeKit can do more than Apple’s Home app is showing you”. They’re right about that, as there are several features of HomeKit that aren’t easily found within the app.
For instance, we’ve looked at how the Home app enables you to use scenes and automations to control your smart devices, but you also have the ability to use automations within the more powerful Shortcuts app. When you’re creating a new automation, there’s a Convert To Shortcut button – easily missed at the bottom of the screen – that adds the automation to the Shortcuts app on iPhone or iPad (but not the Mac version). This provides more advanced control, such as the ability to use the Wait command so that a device, such as a security camera, can wait for a specified time before triggering another device – perhaps turning on the lights or heating when you return home.
Security cameras, in particular, can benefit from the hidden features within HomeKit. Most security cameras will automatically stream live video to your Apple devices if they detect any unusual movement, but you generally have to pay for an additional monthly subscription if you need online storage in order to record and store video.
iCLOUD MEETS HOMEKIT
If you have an iCloud+ subscription, then you also get a feature called HomeKit Secure Video, which lets you store video recordings from your cameras online as part of your monthly subscription. The iCloud+ subscriptions start at just 79p per month with 50GB of storage for your online iCloud Drive. This lets you store recordings from a single camera, while other iCloud+ plans support multiple cameras.
However, camera recordings don’t count towards that storage allowance, so you can store recordings online and still have that 50GB of storage available for other files. That makes iCloud+ an affordable option for storing camera recordings online – far cheaper than the subscriptions offered by most manufacturers of security cameras. HomeKit Secure Video also includes other security features too, such as the ability to use face recognition, or to tell the camera to only focus on specific ‘activity zones’, perhaps around a doorway or parking space.