Smart Homes

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Moving to Apple Homekit (kbin.run)

submitted 8 months ago by VEXdotblue@kbin.run to c/smarthomes@feddit.uk

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I've recently purchased my first few Apple Devices (second hand) and have been looking at changing my current un-smart, smart home of using Google Devices over to Homekit, Luckily I have only done smart bulbs at the moment and is probably a good time to restart.

Is the Apple Homekit system good in the UK? or are there not many devices that can connect easily to the smart home?

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[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

One advantage of HomeKit-compatible devices is that, if you wanted to add Home Assistant into the mix, it does make adding devices very easy. I'm not an apple aficionado but some bits of smart kit happened to work with Homekit and I had zero issues. It feels like the kind of thing Matter/Thread promise but they aren't there yet.

From my external perspective, going purely for HomeKit would mean you have less choice in your devices and you'll likely pay more for them. However, I'm sure more knowledgeable people will be along soon.

[–] VEXdotblue@kbin.run 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Running Home Assistant or any other Bridge is a possibly in the future with something like a raspberry pi but I'm not very smart in that area so it's something I'll have to learn about and build over time.

The reason I'm just purely going for HomeKit at the moment is due to the Apple Eco system being very well known to be easy to set up and use. Some things will obviously have to be done via Home Assistant, such as turning my PC through commands, sensors, or time-based actions.

Matter / Threads is something I have looked slightly into and if I went for a newer Apple HomeHub I know it does have support for those devices. Obviously I'm not only going for turning on and off lights, I hope to have a fully functional home that can be used both smart and dumbly (turning switches off without effecting smart functions).

Thank you for your feedback, I'll have to research Home Assistant more, as well as the overall price per room to do things such as Blinds, Smart TV (w/ AppleTV), Lights (including Switches, and more but this will all not be purchased at once.

[–] Emperor@feddit.uk 2 points 8 months ago

Running Home Assistant or any other Bridge is a possibly in the future with something like a raspberry pi but I’m not very smart in that area so it’s something I’ll have to learn about and build over time.

It's all pretty user-friendly these days. I moved house so did a clean installation and it went very smoothly.

I’ll have to research Home Assistant more, as well as the overall price per room to do things such as Blinds, Smart TV (w/ AppleTV), Lights (including Switches, and more but this will all not be purchased at once.

This is the way - see what prices are like and if you want to do anything fancy. If it's all catered for within a HomeKit environment and you don't feel the price is too high then go for it.