The Home app
With the new Home app in iOS 10, and more devices available, HomeKit will become even more convenient
Apple’s efforts to give you control of your home – alarms, cameras, window locks, lighting, and more – are set to become even easier to use starting this fall. A new app in iOS 10, named Home, consolidates control for all HomeKit-certified devices in one place, rather than you having to learn your way around various apps.
While home automation has been exciting us for some time, and though Apple has been selling HomeKit-compatible devices in its retail and online stores for a while now, this app really brings it all together and makes it really tempting to invest in a range of home automation – especially as Apple is adding support for new types of device to HomeKit in iOS 10, including air conditioners, purifiers, and humidifiers.
The Home app’s opening page displays a list of your favorite scenes and accessories, with a customizable wallpaper behind them. Tapping an accessory in the grid of icons toggles its status, so you can quickly turn on a light, say, or you can use 3D Touch on the latest iPhones to press a little harder and pop up a slider, which you can then drag to make finer adjustments to lighting levels, for example.
If all that tapping sounds like too much work, you can give instructions to Siri to control the current scene, or you can open Control Center and then swipe across it to reach a panel of your favorite home accessories and a button for accessing scenes.
Streamlining the whole experience extends to iOS 10’s improved interactive notifications system. So, you might tap a notification that informs you someone just rang your doorbell to see a video feed from the bell’s camera, along with buttons to start talking over your intercom or unlock the door for your visitor, all from the Lock screen.
If you want remote control of your smart home devices, you’ll still want to add an Apple TV to your setup. With your Apple TV signed in to your iCloud account, turned on and connected to the internet, it provides a conduit for communication with your HomeKit devices even when you’re away – securely, using end-to-end encryption, Apple says – by remotely controlling them over the internet. You can also control your HomeKit devices using Siri on the Apple TV with the release of tvOS 10 later this year.
Controlling your home doesn’t even have to be manual. Just as you can ask the Reminders app to prompt you about a task upon arriving at or leaving a location, you can set up a geofence that activates a HomeKit scene within the app, rather than through individual accessories’ apps.
The Home app will be available on iPad too, and watchOS 3 also has Home controls built in. However, if you’re thinking of using an older second- or third-generation 9.7-inch iPad or the first-generation iPad mini as a controller to leave around the house for your whole family to use, forget it: iOS 10 doesn’t support those models, nor the iPhone 4S.