BEYOND HOMEKIT
Going where the Home app fears to tread
Apple’s Shortcuts app is a pretty daunting prospect for nonprogrammers, but there are other options for people who want to delve deeper into HomeKit. Controller For HomeKit is a popular app for Mac, iPhone and iPad, and the free version provides a more straightforward interface for creating automations and scenes. There’s also a Pro version with advanced features, such as the ability to respond to notifications from the Home app, which costs £24.99 per year (with one week free trial) or £54.99 for a lifetime licence.
Another user-friendly option for going beyond the Home app is Home+, which costs £12.99 from Matthias Hochgatterer. This again provides a more streamlined interface that helps you to create automations, along with a wider range of predefined automation controls than the Home app.
However, the main limitation of HomeKit is that it’s supported by so few smart devices. If you’ve bought some of the popular Nest range of security cameras and other devices, then you could try the Starling Home Hub (from starlinghome.io). For $99 (around £80 plus shipping), this little device connects to your Wi-Fi router and acts as a bridge between your Nest devices and the Home app on your devices.
And if you’re feeling really ambitious, there’s an open-source project called Homebridge that is designed to work with a wide range of smart devices that don’t normally support HomeKit. Like any opensource software, Homebridge tends to be fairly complex to use – and, like HomeKit, it requires a device that can act like a home hub, that must always be left on in order to run the software and control all your devices.
Homebridge can be installed on Macs, Windows PCs, Linux, and even on the Raspberry Pi too. Once that’s done, you then need to locate and install a plug-in for the specific smart devices that you want to control (more info at homebridge.io). Setting up a Raspberry Pi with Homebridge could be a great educational project for those who are learning programming.