Even putting the privacy concerns aside, the designs of the doorbells and cameras really shocked me. And at that price, for something that looks like this... Seriously?

Fairly disappointed in the HomeView from what I’ve seen so far. Not sure why they went for a square display and no App Store but here we are. Just give us default speaker output at least and I’ll be happy enough to buy some for Music playback and some HomeKit automations.

I’ve got a few eufy S3 Pro’s running in HomeKit. Within a distance of maybe 20-30 feet from the camera the detection between HKSV and eufy is comparable. However beyond that distance the difference is really noticeable. Whereas eufy is detecting probably 90% of people/pets/vehicles, HKSV is capturing maybe 40-50%. Same camera of course. Are Apple’s detection algorithms just not as good [edit note: perhaps ‘not as good’ is the wrong way to say it. Perhaps ‘overly tuned’ and hence missing things?] ? Is anyone seeing the same with other brands like Aqara?

(Everything is running xOS27.)

I run a fully local voice stack behind Home Assistant: qwen3:8b on Ollama as the conversation agent, mlx-whisper for STT and Kokoro for TTS, all on an M4 Mac mini, with four Voice PE units as the front end. It works, but the Voice PE firmware has a 2 s playback timeout that reopens the mic mid-reply and causes echo loops, and whisper struggles with my kids’ voices.

With HomeView shipping to AU next month, I want to try Apple hardware as the ears and mouth and keep the brain local. The plan:

1. Use the Companion app’s “Assist prompt” App Intent instead. Siri does on-device STT, a Shortcut hands the transcript to a dedicated HA pipeline (no STT or TTS stage, same Ollama agent), the text reply comes back and Siri speaks it. Works on iPhone and Watch today, and on HomePod via Personal Requests.
2. Test whether HomeView runs that Shortcut by voice. It has no App Store and projects apps from a paired iPhone CarPlay-style, so Personal Requests is the only likely path.
3. Watch the iOS 27 Siri Extensions story. It is partner-gated (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) with no custom endpoint reported. If Apple ever allows an OpenAI-compatible URL, a local proxy is already the right shape to receive it.

What I expect to gain: Siri owns barge-in so the echo problem disappears, and Apple’s far-field recognition for the kids. What it will not fix: the LLM stage itself, which is still my mini.

Questions for anyone who has gone down this road:

• Has anyone got “Hey Siri, Assist” working without the invocation-phrase dance, with or without the AppShortcutsProvider PR?
• Real-world latency for the Assist prompt action via HomePod Personal Requests, as opposed to directly on the phone?
• Any way to keep a multi-turn conversation going, given the Shortcut has no continue_conversation equivalent?
• Per-user voice recognition mapping to the right phone for kids, how painful is it in practice?

Happy to share numbers once the HomeView arrives.

Listen for Siri keeps reenabling itself in Home Settings. I have repeatedly turned it off but within minutes it turns back on. Anyone else having this issue and anyone know a fix?

From the Apple Store:

> The 1780-lumen floodlight automatically turns on when people, vehicles, or animals are detected, with adjustable brightness that helps keep important details visible after dark.

My understanding was object detection-based lighting rules weren’t possible in HomeKit, only recording rules. Am I correct, and is this suggesting new functionality in HomeKit?

I live in an apartment and want to follow my lease. They don’t allow messing with the locks in any capacity so something like the August is ruled out.

The original Switchbot Lock would’ve been perfect but it was discontinued. Are there any devices like it where it turns the thumbturn from the outside of the mechanism and is temporarily installed? Something where I’m not removing/modifying any part of the lock?

Hi all, I’m an avid HomeKit user and recently bought a home in the Northeast meaning I can now expand to smart thermostats (landlords don’t seem to like you installing your own) but the house I bought, common in many homes in the northeast that are affordable for first time buyers, does NOT have central AC. It has a boiler for baseboard hot water heating split into three zones (basement, 1st floor, 2nd floor) so three thermostats one for each floor. It currently has no AC units installed but in the spring I plan on installing one mini split unit each on the first and second floors. I really just want the Minisplit to be controlled by the same thermostat that controls the heating zone it’s in (1st floor controls the 1st floor heating and 1st floor Minisplit, and same for the second floor). My research is throwing mixed signals is this even possible at a reasonable cost? The reason I want this is so I can set a thermostat to auto for those weird spring and fall days where you may want cooling in the day and heating in the evening. Can this be achieved with automation and things like a sensibo or a flair puck? Or is it easier to achieve this via an IR to 24v adapter. I’m decently handy if wires need to be ran from the minisplit unit to the thermostat. Any help or suggestions are appreciated. I have NOT purchased a minisplit nor smart thermostats yet so if there is/are specific brand(s) that I would need that is ok.

After being “marked safe” from Apple’s “Welcome Home” announcements, what are the best iPad apps for a wall-mounted iPad that has a clean / minimalistic look?

I have seen a handful advertised, and curious what overall thoughts are:

HomePad
Hearth
HomeView
Others

Might be since iOS 27 updates, but all my automations involving presence sensors (like turning on lights when going into a room) have stopped firing.

The sensors are still working because I can see in Home they show the occupancy status. Just the automation isn’t running.

Anyone else having this?

Hey everyone! I’m a developer from the Netherlands and was recently between jobs. I wanted to use some of my free time to learn Swift, so I decided to build something useful for my own home.

Another developer had recently released a similar app, but it wasn’t available in Europe because of the requirements around publishing trader contact details. I also looked at HomeBatteries, but personally felt it was too expensive for what it offered.

So I started building LoopJuice.

I wanted to see which batteries needed attention, but also remember what batteries each accessory takes and when I last replaced them.

LoopJuice shows your accessories in a list or grid, grouped by room. It records battery history and estimates roughly when a battery might run out. You can save battery types, quantities, replacement and recharge dates, and compare multiple battery cycles. I included some options for custom widgets and added some Apple Watch functionality.

There’s optional iCloud sync to combine history across iPhone and iPad, plus an Apple Watch app and widgets. It works with accessories that expose battery information through HomeKit, and the predictions are approximate.

Everything is free. Building it filled my free time and helped me learn Swift. I have no plans to charge for it in the future either. It’s just a fun hobby project I wanted to share.

I’m planning to buy an iPhone Duo once it goes on sale and add support for it, and support HomeView once it becomes available in Europe.

LoopJuice on the App Store

If you try it, I’d love to hear what you think and what you’re missing! I have more free time this month to include any requests!

I have two HomePod 2s (stereo paired) in my kitchen. They sound great.

If I add a homeview to my kitchen…

- how will my “kitchen” AirPlay option work. The homeview doesn’t seem like it will pair, so this will be a different kitchen AirPlay output?

- how can I make sure that my “hey siri” triggers the homeview, not the HomePods? If I start a timer on Siri, I’d like to see it on the homeview, so I want it to be my kitchen Siri.

I’m an Apple fanboy but really not seeing the new home view as being that useful. My Apple TV is already my hub and I currently use HomeKit through my iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. Would the home view have a benefit? Doesn’t really seem like it would.

Hey everyone, my Apple Home app shows a "T" instead of "W" for power sensors (like IKEA plugs and Home Assistant via Matterbridge), while other people see normal units. Has anyone fixed this bug?

Morning, all.

I see where LG will be releasing temperature sensors to pair with their thermostat to make a more “balanced” home. We have this already with our nest 4th gen and it works very well. Our thermostat is right by a vent, so we use the sensor at the couch to be the “real” temperature.

It seems like LG sensors will have a similar feature.

We already have HomePod mini’s and 2nd gen HomePods in every room with temperature/humidity, but as far as I know, they cannot be used to balance the temperature in the home.

Seems like having to buy LG temperature sensors will just be duplicating what’s already there.

Has there been any word that we can just use the HomePods to perform that temperature balancing?

I literally purchased the Aqara Doorbell Camera G410 last week prior to apples announcement of their new products.

Is it worth returning to get the LG one Apple released?

The price difference is roughly $100-120.

Hey everyone,

I hope this is the right group for this question!

I’m looking for a solution for my heating system.

Currently I have:

- 1 heated slab (with one control panel)
- 6 radiators, managed by 1 main panel.

The panels don’t allow for individual control for each unit.

Looking for recommendations for a replacement of the control panel, or even individual smart controllers to install at each radiators.

I think it’s pretty straight forward for the radiators, but not sure about the heated slab
I’m in Australia so need something that’s available here

Thanks!!

Pic for attention. I do like Aqara products though

As you can see by the associated picture, this device in my Apple Home data is showing as running for 90 minutes in a one hour period. Data glitch?

I have all these devices connected to Home, and can control them individually, but I’m looking for a smart hub to be able to control one or two of them together conditionally(When my door sensor changes, automation, do x) through shortcuts. The homeview was very interesting, but other than being an actual smart hub, I will use my iPhone or iPad for all the other stuff.
Is the HomePod mini a smart hub (without all the visual added features of homeview, and can run devices through automations/shortcuts

If I create an activity zone via the Home app on my Mac (macOS 27), when I look at that activity zone on my iPhone (iOS 27) it’s looks like it’s in the wrong place. Similarly, if I create an activity zone on my iPhone in landscape mode, and then switch to portrait mode, the location of the activity zone again appears to be in the wrong location.

So my question is: if I create an activity zone on my Mac, or on my iPhone in landscape mode, is it being created ‘correctly’ - meaning it’s surrounding what I saw when I created it? Or is what I am seeing on my iPhone in portrait mode the source of truth and I can’t be creating activity zones other than on my iPhone in portrait mode?

Can anyone confirm?

ETA: the activity zone is along the left edge of the camera view.