Imagine how long it would take to deploy that same number of updates to Android devices. Google releases it, the handset manufacturer does their thing and then the provider does their thing.
Purely from a business standpoint lets look at the pros and cons for homekit integration.
Pros
1.) When you join homekit, your product is advertised by Apple on their website, events, ads etc.
2.) Millions of potential customers that have never heard of your product, would know your name.
3.) Millions instantly trust your product due exclusively to Appleās seal of approval.
4.) You may even be chosen to appear at an Apple event.
5.) This kind of advertising would cost you millions.
6.) Benefit to customers? More options = more customers.
7.) Apple customers are well known to be ready, willing and able to spend $$$ on tech.
8.) You could offer what you have now and add another hub to your lineup that supports home kit.
9.) Exponential customer growth is a definite possibility.
Cons
1.) Itās a lot of work to create a product following Appleās strict requirements.
2.) You arenāt sure of the benefit to your customers, is this even a con since you āarenāt sureā?
3.) Fill in the blank, please, Iād like to know.
It seems to me that passing on the potential of homekit is a bad business decision. But that is just my point of view. No, Iām not an apple fanboy, but I am realistic. Apple is a giant with billions to back them up, and millions of very loyal customers, that could in turn be loyal to Smartthings if you gave them the chance.
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I would add a few more cons:
- Creating a second class of SmartThings user with a different user experience that is different and in some ways more restricted than other classes. This also causes support difficulties.
- Restrictions on what data SmartThings, partners, or independent developers can pull and how they use it.
There are likely a few more.
I would downplay the requirements from a hardware perspective. Basically it is just the inclusion of a chip used for identification/security.
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I would respectfully disagree.
This is not been the experience of those hardware manufacturers that actually did go for HomeKit compatibility. The power requirements needed for the encryption part of this chip are huge relative to the typical requirements of these types of devices. This alone caused a number of stutter steps for multiple hardware vendors with a lot of experience doing devices, including Ecobee and Schlage, over the last 15 months. Ecobee went to great detail in the fortune interview which is linked to upthread. Even Philips had to take a couple of runs at it. This was not an easy integration.
It may be the reason why the only open/close sensors currently available for HomeKit donāt send a notification when something is open. You can query it to see the status, and thereās a log of how often it was open, but no notification. It cannot act as a trigger for something else to happen
Granted, the SmartThings hub is a powered device, but itās a Multi radio powered device already. With neither of the two available HomeKit protocols turned on (Bluetooth or WiFi).
Hardware is hard, and the HomeKit hardware appears to be particularly hard. Just sayināā¦
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But, Ben
Assume that we could have a HomeKit capable hub, hardware wise. What about just doing an integration similar to Echo, where I get to select the devices available through the integration. Echo is actually a pretty good example for what youād do with Siri, where the biggest differences would be how you did it (talk to Alexa vs talk to Siri) and where you could do it (near Echo vs. anywhere). So Iād have certain things that I could use Siri for, just like I have certain things that I can use Alexa for. ??
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My concern is that there must be some reason why the Insteon/HomeKit integration works the way it does. They have a completely separate hub for their HomeKit version and it actually has exactly what Ben describes: a different and diminished experience from the regular insteon hub.
You wouldnāt Think they wouldāve done it that way unless they had to, if only contractually with Apple, so there has to be something going on. Maybe the trusted Wi-Fi concept. Anyway, see the grid at the very bottom of the following page.
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That table literally has the Homekit device listed at twice the price with half the features. It would take some serious sorcery to convince me that it was truly the better deal.
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I know! Thatās why Iām thinking that Apple mustāve made them do it that way, it canāt of been their own plan. It must be some security issue if they are not even allowed to have the Wi-Fi cameras on there.
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The Withings camera is HomeKit compatible and operates via wifi. Maybe in the rush to get out a product Insteon skipped that for the first gen hub.
Talk to the people in this project thread:
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The short answer is āYesā and success seems to depend on a few factors; I have had Siri controlling my home via HomeBridge for over a week successfully.
I have been using homebridge with ~50 devices for about a week now, too. Set up may not be for everyone since it is not just plug and play. But once it is running it takes home automation to the next level.
I know Smartthings is about automation but for the (many!!!) times I need to do things manually I see the huge benefit however from not having to open the app anymore to turn things on and off or launch actions from the widget. Those couple of seconds make a big difference when it comes to usability. Also there is the benefit over Echo that I always have my phone with me in the every room of the house or even remotely.
Homebridge is a good example how the Smartthings ecosystem can co-exist with Homekit and expand the functionality instead of limiting it. I can see that a more robust Homekit implementation than Homebridge is difficult and may require quite some effort but I would be more happy to pay more for such a premium feature than for e.g. video recordingā¦
By any chance, do you have a home energy monitor as one of your devices? I have the Aeon Labs Aeotec Z-Wave Smart Energy Monitor. Iām considering moving to a homekit setup but there are simply some z-wave devices I canāt replace. And, economically, it would be difficult to do all at once as I also have about 50 devices in the house.
Hi Mike, Actually only a very small number of Apple owners are really aware of HomeKit at all. Letās look at the big picture:
- Apple hasnāt even started promoting HomeKit. Weāre starting to see the first ever commercial blitz for Apple TV (which obviously plays with HomeKit), but nothing HomeKit yet. This should not be surprising. Apple has a reputation of at least bringing out product thatās pretty well developed.
I donāt expect weāll see any real promotion for HomeKit until fall of 2016. In other words, itās early for HomeKit, but for Apple folks, we can start small. Iām already controlling my new Ecobee3 thermostat using Siri. - Apple is just starting to ābuild outā HomeKit from a device standpoint. It takes a good deal of time before there are a lot of supporting devices for any new format. They started off with announcements from a few companies a year ago. (Including SmartThings), this summer more products were added. But, watch what happens in the next year or two.
- Like first gen iPods, iPhones, tablets, watch, even the apple 2 and macintosh didnāt start out with everything. Overtime thereās an android phone with something new that the iPhone lacks, thereās always - look at this, Apple canāt do that, but sooner or later most of that comes to Apple devices along with all the things that Apple pioneered first. So, expect HomeKit to go from a 5% solution today, to a 85% or 90% solution in perhaps two years. For most of us Apple folks, thatās just fine. Z-wave has a nice decade long head start, and sadly itās still a mess from a device / hub compatibility. My Nexia couldnāt do much with my old Kwikset front door lock, I could lock/unlock, but couldnāt have my door automatically lock at 11pm if it wasnāt already locked. Partial support. Now I have a Schlage lock. Seems had I used that one with the Nexia, I would have had full support, even so that unlocking the front door could trigger heat coming on, lights turning on, etc. Now, Iām just about to tie the Schlage into the ST Hub. Iām curious to see if Iāll have the same full set of abilities as with the Nexia (at one point both Nexia and Kwikset were part of the same company: Ingersoll Rand.
What is full support? SmartThings and many others, of course have started off with an existing standard - Z-Wave, yet, after all these Z-wave years, it really comes down to āis this device fully supportedā vs. basic support. Every time you pick up a device with some advanced capability, you have to start looking for the hub that will support those capabilities. Iām big on RGB and RGB+W smart lights. What a disaster most of Z-wave is so far.
For example, I have Zipato RGB+W bulbs. I started with HomeSeer hub before Z-Wave+. By the time HomeSeer had some support for Zipato, I was on to my next controller, a Nexia.
The Nexia app had zero support for color lighting. I could turn on, off, or dim, but no color. But, their website (subscription) had at least a little more support. There I could pull up a color wheel and set the color. That would be the color of the light whether controlling by app or website, until changed one the website, the app would grab whatever color the bulb was last commanded and go with it.
Then a couple of months ago, I replaced the Nexia with the latest ST Hub. I wanted to get some color out of my Zipato bulbs, no joy. Then I spoke with SmartThings support. They pushed a community solution down to me, so now I have some color support. Still pretty thin. From my app I can now select a color and set its brightness (thanks ācommunityā), and switch the light to that color, but thatās as far as it goes. What I want to do, is have a whole bunch of different preset colors (and different brightness levels) available at touch. For example, I might want to have a particular color up fairly bright, before sunset, but after the sun goes down, switch to a different color and a lower brightness, then have the brightness reduce sightly over the next half hour until itās dark outside. I imagine this can be automated with IFTTT in some way, but the point is, I should have the ability to select many different colors and brightness levels and effortlessly (ideally by voice), swap them out whenever or automate.
So, maybe next month, or next year, ST will have full support for Zipato and other RGB and RGB+W bulbs. On the other hand, if Zipato can support HomeKit, my Zipato issues will quickly go away. (Zipato is Z-wave, not Wifi so thatās a big āIF.ā (And why I hoped the ST would talk to HomeKit, providing a link.)
If Zipato supports HomeKit, Iāll get what I want. If they donāt, Maybe, eventually Iāll get the capabilities through ST, but I canāt count on that.
Iāve just ordered in a basic Philips Hue setup to see how well Apple HomeKit / Siri can handle, since there is HomeKit support there. Not not a huge fan of Hue, because I wish they were brighter, and because they really donāt allow you a shot at the full color spectrum. Will it be able to do more than my ST hub with any of my color lights? We shall see soon enough.
But back to my main point. For the most part, the vast majority Apple owners are only vaguely aware of HomeKit. Those that are, many will look at it as, OK, HomeKit is Apple, so I can trust it even if itās āearly on.ā Theyāll thinkā¦ OK, I an start off with a HomeKit supported smart thermostat, add some supported lights. And add more and more automation as things become available.
Iām not particularly patient, as its my job to review some of these products, but most apple iOS owners arenāt folks who care to live on the ābleeding edge.ā Letās face it, unfortunately, due to things including some I mentioned above (partial support in particular), most of this stuff - Z-wave, Zigbee, Insteonā¦ is still catering primarily to DIY types, because of the bleeding edge aspects. Hey, if it were all super simple, would we need a a great community like STās?
PS. This month Iām installing a whole bunch of Lutron gear in my home. Support for HomeKit is one reason I moved forward with Lutron at this time. Unfortunately, Lutron, so far, is ignoring (best I can tell) the bulk of RGB and RGB+W lighting (I think they have some RGB strips coming, but thatās all?)
It probably will look like this two years from now: Apple HomeKit will be used to control at least one device, in millions of homes, and be doing some pretty capable work in a lot of folks homes, controlling multiple types of devices. But it just might take two, or even three years, before there are a ton of compatible devices that work well.
Z-Wave will likely to continue to be the primary DIY environment.
ST will either remain a very open Z-wave type controller, or Samsung will bring it more closely into its fold. There to help support Samsung phones over other Android devices, etc. Samsung will have to decide which way to play it. With support for HomeKit, I felt that ST had the ability to become a potential standard among Z-wave controllers, one that ultimately is fully supporting both Android and iOS. But without support for HomeKit, that muddies things up. The first ābig nameā Z-wave Hub to commit to full HomeKit support, will likely push ST into an also ran situation, because simply, iOS folks spend far more money than android folks on most things - buying music services or music, buying apps, buying accessories and peripherals.
HomeKit will be positioned to make ānew schoolā home automation easy for millions. How many of you can recommend a Z-wave hub to friends who just arenāt that technical, or are, but donāt want to deal with another "headache."
PS. I have an Echo too. Iām using it, so far, to control a number of Wifi devices around the house, but so far thatās limited to three BelkinWemo devices. So far the Echo doesnāt support the other wifi devices I own.
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@tgauchat Try setting up lighting groups in the echo app, this makes it much easier to turn on or off say the ābedroomā lightsā¦
Hi Mike. Like others here I would like HomeKit compatibility so I can use Siri to control things. Iāve got a lot of Apple devices, including an Apple Watch. I looked at Smarthings for integration, but went with Philips instead. Thatās very limited functionality at present, but I lock/unlock my doors, turn lights on/off/dim (both for smart bulbs and switches), get alerts for open doors, etc. most of what Iām looking for (I have no need to manage complicated stuff like home theater).
I can activate a lot of these through Siri on either my iPhone or Watch. Since I also have the latest Apple TV, I can do these things remotely. It works today. I had very little trouble setting it upāmaybe an hour of configuration (unlike my Smartthings hub setup, which was a disaster, wasting several hours and never did work).
I already have the Apple devices. I suppose if I wanted to buy an Amazon Echo, I could get roughly the same (assuming I got the Smartthings hub set up properly). Except my phone and watch are always nearby, whereas Echo wonāt be.
Bottom line, voice activation is key for me. I wonāt use home automation if I have to pull out my phone and poke around at buttons on an app to turn something on/off. Thatās why I have very few smart bulbs and lots of smart switchesāI can control them the good old fashioned manual way or via voice control, but in most cases (with HomeKit) without ever opening an app.
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As far as I (as a customer) am concerned, this is a plus, not a minus. But for SamThingsā far-reaching plans to monetize user data, it surely is a deal breaker.
I use both echo and Siri. I found echo much more natural, plus itās nice to have other people in the house to be able to use it, even those without smart phones. But Siri is still very good for times when I am out of range of the echo, like in the yard.
I have a number of HomeKit devices and really like them. Set up, as you mentioned was very easy. And with the exception of one I Home plug, which I returned the first week, theyāve all been extremely reliable.
The big thing that is still missing is the ability to trigger from motion and contact sensors. Theoretically itās in Homekit, but so far the only devices that can use it are the Wi-Fi ones, not the Bluetooth ones. So the ecobee sensors can do it, but not the eve ones. Eve has said theyāre going to add the capability, but they havenāt yet, which does make one wonder.
My own guess, purely a guess, is that thereās a power management issue for the battery operated devices. But who knows? For now though, I can only consider HomeKit a partial solution for my own needs.
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Greetings and salutations. I come in peace, though apprehensively.
So I have a SmartThings Home monitoring kit that I ordered recently. It sits here unopened. Why? After searching diligently, apparently not enough I steadied on SmartThings but a day after I ordered the kit I came across Homekit.
As a confirmed Apple fanboy, card carrying actually, I of course, will make this my default platform.
Two questions:
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Will this ST be potentially compatible with HOmekit? I donāt want to get a doctorate on this, just slightly more than plug and play is what I require.
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If the answer is no, then why do I keep this kit?
I thank you profusely.
PS: Please keep iOS10 in mind.