Smart home products
Some of the best HomeKit gear for making life easier
HomeKit may still be trailing behind Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant in the home-automation market, but there are still enough HomeKitcompatible devices available to create a pretty impressive smart home setup.
The three top product categories in the smart home market are speakers, lights and security cameras. Apple does have a list of HomeKit-compatible devices on its website (apple.co/3WeNNrX). The list includes lots of other devices such as thermostats, controls for fans and air conditioning systems, smart locks for your front door, and even remote controls for garage doors. However, many of these more complex devices require professional installation – the last thing you want to do in the winter is screw up your heating by trying to wire up a HomeKit thermostat by yourself!
AIRPLAY & HOMEKIT
That brings us back to the big three smart home items – speakers, lights and security cameras. The good news for audiophiles is that Apple’s AirPlay software – which was originally designed for multi-room speaker systems – is compatible with HomeKit and the Home app. This means that any AirPlay speaker can be controlled using the Home app, Siri, or Control Centre on any of your Apple devices. You can even mix and match speakers from different manufacturers, perhaps playing the same music on a Sonos Roam portable speaker in your garden, and also on a HomePod in the kitchen.
And, while HomeKit has struggled to attract support from other manufacturers, AirPlay has been adopted by many big-name audio brands, such as Sonos, Bowers & Wilkins, and Bang & Olufsen. Even Ikea has got in on the act with its somewhat bizarre Symfonisk speaker/lamp hybrid. The one disappointment here is that Apple doesn’t allow these manufacturers to include Siri in their smart speakers, so the only smart speaker that currently supports Siri are Apple’s HomePod and HomePod mini.
LIGHT UP YOUR HOME
There aren’t a huge number of smart lights that support HomeKit, but the key player that dominates this market is Philips with its Hue range of smart lights. Philips was one of the first companies to support HomeKit in its products, and the Hue range has been very successful, spawning a wide range of lights, bulbs and lamps for use in different rooms
around your home, and even outdoor lights for your garden or parking space.
If you want to use Hue products with HomeKit and the Home app, then you also need to buy a Hue Bridge – either on its own or as part of a Hue Starter Kit (see left). There are a couple of other companies that make HomeKitcompatible lights that are also well worth exploring. LIFX makes a range of lightbulbs, starting with simple, affordable white bulbs through to multicolour options, as well as decorative lightstrips and even lighting kits for gamers (available from lifx.com, although they’re not all HomeKit-compatible, so make sure to check that before buying).
Nanoleaf also makes simple bulbs, but it’s best known for eye-catching, multicolour modular lighting systems (nanoleaf.me). Rather than using bulbs, its lighting kits have names such as Lines, Hexagon and Canvas, and consist of illuminated panels of various shapes that you can link together to create decorative lighting designs that are almost like sculptures – or, of course, just disco lights for a party.
The future is looking even brighter too as there are other companies, such as Wiz (wizconnected.com), that have announced plans to support the new Matter technology with their smart lights and other products. Matter will be compatible with HomeKit, so that should mean that there are more speakers, lights, security cameras and other devices available for Appleloving homes than ever before.