
Welcome to a walkthrough of my HomeKit home. I’ll cover the pure-HomeKit devices that make up my home, there will be a follow-up post on how Home Assistant totally transformed HomeKit into a powerhouse. My overall journey with HomeKit has been a mixed bag, and that’s mostly because of how terrible Siri on HomePods is. (I’ve been told there’s an internal effort to improve it.)
iOS Home App – Great!
HomeKit — Mediocre.
Siri — Absolutely garbage!
Video overview:
Photos:
My HomeKit Home setup is a combination of the following products:
- Home hubs / Media and Entertainment:
- 3x Apple TVs (disabled as HomeKit hubs)
- 5x HomePod Minis (act as HomeKit hubs)
- Lighting:
- Philips Hue hub with 17 Hue lights
- Lutron hub with 4 Lutron switches
- 5x Nanoleaf
- Security:
- 3x Aqara cameras
- Level Lock (detailed review)
- Sensors and Buttons:
- Multiple Aqara buttons and door sensors (I have an entire ecosystem of Aqara sensors connected via Home Assistant that’s separate to some of the Aqara devices directly paired with HomeKit)
- Temperature:
- 2x Ecobee thermostats (previous generation)
- Power Plug
- WeMo HomeKit switch
- Blinds
- Ryse HomeKit Blinds / covers
Home Hubs / Media and Entertainment:
One huge problem with HomeKit is Apple’s core architecture for it. It’s one of those sounds like a great idea but absolutely rubbish in reality. The basic premise that Apple’s HomeKit original architects thought of was, in true Apple ways, HomeKit will pick whichever device it thinks to be the hub; users cannot pick which device is. I have 5 HomePod Minis and 3 Apple TVs, so at any given time, Apple randomly changes the main hub. There’s absolutely no logical reason to have this changed but some Apple engineers made this ridiculous decision, and some have been deciding to double down on this (end this rubbish, please).
The initial understanding was that the device with best Internet connectivity will be the hub. Now, people’s home setup does not change much. You put your router, HomePods and your Apple TVs, and these don’t move physically. So, there’s no reason for the primary hub to keep changing. People have Apple TVs wired but it still won’t remain the hub. These engineers have an architectural design where a device with the latest firmware will be the hub and HomePods have a newer version from Apple than Apple TVs, so HomePods have to be the hub.
This is a stupid architecture. And the people who continue to support this architecture should be moved to the desktop iTunes team.
Summary:
- HomePod Minis: Love the hardware, hate Siri
- Apple TV 4K and older generations: Good hardware, reliable, love the integration of apps, and the ability to watch all my HomeKit cameras
Lighting: Philips Hue
The most reliable devices in my smart home have been Philips Hue. These things have their own hub, use a proprietary ZigBee channel, and always work. No matter which platform I use, these things are the first to show and always just work. Also, quite expensive. Over the past 7 years, I’ve acquired the following through Black Friday deals and other random sales:
- 14 bulbs
- Filament bulbs (for mood lighting)
- Some full colored and some white ambiance ones
- 1 outdoor strip
- 1 pair of Hue Play as reading lights within a bed’s headrest
Siri and iOS Home app have issues because these 2 techs are terrible, but Philips Hue — always reliable, never fails. I know pretty much any and every company that does smart home products has bulbs, if you are looking to get bulbs, DO NOT get anything other Philips Hue. They just work, always.
Links to the products:
- Philips Hue Hub + Bulbs
- Philips Hue Color Bulbs
- Philips Hue Filament Bulb
- Philips Hue Play Light Bar
- Philips Hue Outdoor Strip
- Philips Hue Dimmer Control
Lighting: Lutron Caseta Switches
These are to switches what Philips Hue is to bulbs — reliable and always work. In my apartment, there are some ceiling mounted lights with a 3 to 4 bulbs powered by 1 switch. Instead of replacing each of these bulbs with Hue, I added Lutron to the mix. Currently, I have 4 Lutron Casetta switches to power ceiling lights in the office, kitchen, and the dining room. These integrate flawlessly with HomeKit and just like Philips Hue, vanish into the background with near-instant response time to automations. (Voice commands with Siri are hit or miss so when you get it right, Lutrons and Hues work instantly.)
The only issue with Lutrons are:
- They are unreasonably expensive and sales are limited to “starter packs” and rarely on individual switches
- I also got an electrician to install these so there was an additional cost because of that
Links to the products:
Lighting: Nanoleafs
My brother gifted me my first set of Nanoleaf Canvas and I eventually bought a small expansion pack. Since then, I came across some Best Buy sales for the Nanoleaf Shapes (triangles) and deals on Nanoleaf strips so added these to my office. These are all HomeKit compatible without a hub (unlike Hue and Lutron). All Nanoleafs are confined to my office for a some RGB fun. Here’s what I currently have:
- Nanoleaf Canvas (10 tiles)
- Nanoleaf Shapes (15 triangles) — the controllers for these are very finnicky and have crapped on me thrice so far
- 3 Nanoleaf strips around my desk
A quick review of Nanoleaf:
- The setup is very easy, as easy as HomeKit advertises its setup process to be
- The Nanoleaf app isn’t the great
- Expensive
- The pre-configured scenes are fun (my favorite is Northern Lights)
- Nanoleaf keeps cluttering the iOS Home app with its scenes after each update, despite you deleting all the scenes that you don’t want (it’s just absolutely terribly annoying)
Links to the products:
Security: Aqara Cameras
Anyone invested in HomeKit should also invest in Aqara. This brand has been fantastic for HomeKit enthusiasts. Currently, I have 3 Aqara cameras:
- G2H connected to an Aqara door sensor on the main entrance
- G3 as a baby monitor
- G3 for coverage around some parts of the apartment
I had a few instances where I had technicians or deliveries come at a time when I wasn’t home, so I decided to try out the Aqara G2H camera for my door. The setup was super easy, and I connected it to an Aqara door sensor. The automation is very simple, and it works without fail.
When the door is opened, it captures a short video, without fail. I added an SD card to the camera as well, so I didn’t run out of storage. So far, I haven’t received any notification that that is happening. I really wanted to connect the camera to my TrueNAS or WD NAS for offsite storage of clips — that wouldn’t work since the camera only supports the deprecated and unsecure SMB1. (I haven’t revisited this to see if Aqara updated anything here.)
A quick review of Aqara cameras:
- Affordable
- Work in Aqara app and iOS Home app simultaneously
- Most of the fun features are limited to the Aqara app (detections for abnormal sound, motion etc.)
- Often lose connectivity within iOS Home app but work reliably within the Aqara app
Links to the products:
Temperature: Ecobee Thermostats
When I moved into an apartment with HVAC heating and cooling, I was very excited. It wasn’t because of the centralized temperature control; it was because I could now hook the HVAC into HomeKit. Pretty much every review I read said Ecobee was the best HomeKit thermostat so, come Black Friday, I got myself a pair of these. Setting these up was a nightmare. 3 different electricians couldn’t figure it out. Eventually it was my brother and me tinkering, and a lot of Reddit threads helped us get this working.
My experience with Ecobee has been very underwhelming. The built-in schedules (automations) of Home, Away and Sleep are very annoying to setup and control. These also get expensive with the HVAC running all day. The HomeKit integration was smooth but again, Siri and temperature control automations were more miss than hit. My wife hates it too. Any time we need to increase / decrease the temperature, we either do it manually on the device’s screen or use the scroller in iOS Home. I have also disabled Siri on this because it would always trigger at the wrong time and compete with a HomePod Mini close to the Ecobee.
Here are some tweets that captured my Ecobee experiences as I set these up:
if Ecobee is the best of the smart home devices then I can’t even imagine how bad the others in the market because ecobee is a dumb device, it doesn’t have a smart wire in its casing (like bone in body but you know, wire in casing…)
— Manan ????? (@manan) June 27, 2022
My Smart Home is Stupid – HVAC Update https://t.co/jvnuTL042M lol! Watching @LinusTech going through so much frustration with Ecobee, HomeKit & Home Assistant gives me solace that I’m not alone & an idiot.
— Manan ????? (@manan) February 15, 2023
Just connected O/B but tried without it as well. Having it connected/not didn’t make any difference pic.twitter.com/1yP10dJJ8f
— Manan ????? (@manan) October 17, 2021
Links to the products:
Switches: WeMo HomeKit Switch
I wanted to get at least 1 HomeKit switch for my balcony to control a light strip. I went with WeMo since that’s what started my smart home journey over 10 years ago. The HomeKit switch is simple and works. I do often have issues because the balcony loses Internet connection if the doors and windows are closed. But that happens sporadically and not often enough for me to do something about it.
Link to the product:
Buttons: Aqara HomeKit Buttons
I am using a few Aqara buttons directly connected to HomeKit and am using a mix of Z-Wave and ZigBee buttons via Home Assistant. The Aqara buttons are neat. They look sleek and are simple to interact with. Offering 4 modes through 1 button:
- Single press
- Single press + hold
- Double press
- Triple press
My current configuration for my buttons are:
- Dining room button:
- Single press: turn on Dining Room (chandelier, Hue strip) and Balcony lights (Hue outdoor lights and standard Christmas lights connected via WeMo HomeKit switch)
- Press and hold: turn these lights off
- Office button:
- Single press: turn on all Nanoleafs and set these to Northern Lights scene, set the Lutron Caseta lights to 20% (and some devices exposed to HomeKit via Home Assistant)
- Press and hold: turn these off
Links to the products:
Covers / Blinds: Ryse HomeKit
I have some floor to ceiling and large blinds that I wanted to automate. The only option that could achieve this was Ryse / AXIS Gear. I have had a mixed bag of issues with the HomeKit version of Ryse. I have a hub and 2 blinds connected to HomeKit via the hub and the reactions of these blinds has been very inconsistent. I have to tell Siri the same thing several times to get what I really wanted from the blinds. One of my blinds installations has been an absolute disaster. The initial install destroyed my pillar and once I actually got it working, the Ryse motor was snapped my cord. The first time it was user error and the second time, I don’t know. I had it working for 2 months and then one fine morning, the cord just snapped when I started the controller. I don’t recommend this product.
A quick review of the Ryse blinds controller:
- Physical installation is a nightmare since these devices don’t come with wall anchors and have tiny screws that don’t sit well in a drywall without an anchor
- No anchor installation will destroy your wall and damage your device, this happens because of the micro-movements of the motor if your blinds are heavy
- If you get it to work, they really work well
- I’ve had more reliable operations with the old-gen ZigBee blinds than the fully HomeKit integrated new-gen
Links to the products: