Home 3
Should you pay for HomeKit control?
$14.99 From Matthias Hochgatterer, hochgatterer.me Made for iPhone, iPad, Watch Needs iOS 11.0 or later
Home (no not that Home) is a HomeKit manager. It promises a lot — as it should, given that it is a $14.99 app in a straight fist fight with two free, muscular alternatives. And it delivers, at least in one direction. It’s fully–featured in terms of its automation capabilities, which allow you to get to parts of complex smart home programming that Apple’s own app can’t reach. It still needs a home hub to do anything other than reacting to timers, though, even if its App Store description suggests otherwise.
Despite neat slide–to–adjust controls, a set of decent widgets (including a new camera widget, if you’re lucky enough to have hunted down the rare and elusive HomeKit–compatible cam), and 3D Touch previews, Home isn’t quite there in terms of its feel. Its interface, which offers up access to the usual Homekit scenes, rooms and devices, is lacking in looks, particularly next to the polished Eve for HomeKit, and sometimes more awkward than it needs to be. Head to the settings menu, for example, and there’s an enticing Dark Mode option — which helpfully, half–heartedly, instructs you to use iOS’ own adaptive dark mode option.
It’s a massive achievement by a sole coder, but this is an app that’s only valuable if you really, really want to create complex automations. Outside of that, the free alternatives are much more pleasing for those who simply want some casual smart home management.
the bottom line. Deep access to HomeKit features, yes, but an expensive app otherwise.