HomeKit Automation

How to control your old garage door with Siri and HomeKit

Sébastien Page / May 10, 2021
HomeKit garage door

You don't need to spend big money on a brand new garage door opener in order to be able to control it with HomeKit and/or Siri. Indeed, you can simply use an add-on accessory that will bring HomeKit support to virtually any garage door opener, letting you control it using Siri or the Home app on your iPad, iPhone, or Apple Watch.

I personally upgraded my garage door opener with such an accessory a few weeks ago, and in about 30 minutes, I was all set. Now this is not a hack. This is not a workaround. This is real HomeKit support, and all it requires is the meross Smart Garage Door Opener Remote, a $49 accessory you can find on Amazon.

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Check out these 9 new Apple TV features in tvOS 14

Christian Zibreg / September 21, 2020

Apple yesterday released the tvOS 14 software update that brings new capabilities and feature enhancements to the company’s Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K digital media players. Some of the big ones you’ve already heard about, such as an expanded Picture in Picture feature and multiuser support for Apple Arcade. With the media's attention focused on the headline-grabbing improvements in iOS 14, we thought you might also want to learn about everything new in tvOS 14 so here it goes...

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5 useful smart home automations to set up in Home App

Sandy Writtenhouse / May 31, 2020
Create Home Automation on Mac

We’ve shown you how to create Scenes with the Home app which let you control multiple accessories at once based on your actions like arriving or leaving. In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through how to set up Automations.

With Automations, you can have your accessories respond to each other. For instance, you can have a light turn on when your smart lock unlocks the front door. Or you can have your smart thermostat adjust the temperature at a certain time of day.

Depending on the smart home accessories you use, you should get some great suggestions here for setting up Automations in the Home app.

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What happens when your smart home is obsolete?

Peter Cohen / January 22, 2020

A recent controversy sparked by smart speaker maker Sonos illustrates the dangers of building a smart home. What happens when the technology you build your home on is suddenly obsolete? That's the quandary that many Sonos customers are facing this week after the company announced the end of support for its oldest products, some of which have been in use for more than a decade.

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It’s time for Apple Home

Christian Zibreg / January 16, 2020
Change Home app wallpaper

Macworld writer Jason Snell published today a thought-provoking piece titled "It’s time for new hardware at the center of Apple’s home strategy" that's well worth a read, especially if you belong to the camp that believes it's high time for Apple Home.

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Abode Iota DIY security system adds HomeKit support

Peter Cohen / November 21, 2019
abode Iota HomeKit

Abode announced Thursday that its Iota DIY smart security system is finally HomeKit compatible. HomeKit is available as an update to the Iota system, enabling Iota users to control the system using the Apple Home app on the iPhone, and Siri on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and HomePod.

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How to create scenes with HomeKit to control multiple accessories

Sandy Writtenhouse / November 11, 2019
Create Scenes HomeKit Mac

For the perfect atmosphere when arriving home after a long day at work or starting your day with something upbeat, you can set up scenes with HomeKit.

Scenes let you control multiple accessories that you connect in the Home app at one time. You can create scenes based on your leaving, arriving, or a custom setting. Then, the automated scene takes over with the settings you choose.

Here’s how to create scenes with HomeKit on both Mac and iOS.

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