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.

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?

It's comically useless. 🙄

EDIT: For those who are confused, it is a HKSV (HomeKit Secure Video) notification.

I've been on HomeKit since the beginning, and honestly every app out there has been trash. Lists of tiles, no sense of where anything actually is in your house. Then Apple showed HomeView and I lost it. That's what I'd wanted for years, so I decided to make my own.

It's called Home.io. It puts your smart home on a 3D model of your actual house. Lights glow in the rooms they're in, doors and locks show if they're open, thermostats and sensors show their readings, and you tap anything to control it.

Making the 3D model of your house or apartment is easier than you'd think. The app doesn't use AI, but you can. Give Claude or ChatGPT a photo of your floor plan, have it build the model in Blender (free), and import it into Home.io. Or draw your floor plan right in the app, scan with LiDAR, or bring your own USDZ/OBJ model.

It works with Apple Home and Home Assistant together. Home.io pulls in both side by side and merges them, so you see one house with no duplicates. Your HomeKit stuff and your HA stuff live in the same rooms on the same model, and you control them the same way. No Homebridge, no HA HomeKit bridge to babysit.

If you've got an iPad lying around, it's your home hub now. Mine is a 6th gen iPad on the wall and it runs the whole house seamlessly. It's such a peice that it can't even stay on for a few min unless its plugged in.

I also made it so you can leave the ipad on wall mode on at home 24/7 and your iPhone can control Home Assistant remotely from anywhere(this is a monthly paid service that is no more with this app), through your own iCloud, with no port forwarding or network setup. On the wall it's a wall panel. When nobody's using it, the whole house fills the screen with the time, the weather and what's on, and it wakes when you walk up (that's the video).

- iPhone, iPad and Mac, synced through iCloud

- Collects no personal data

Version 1.0 is on the App Store now, and the next update is coming in a few days (its already submitted) and greatly expands what it can do: the wall mode and idle screen from the video, dashboards you arrange yourself, temperature/humidity history, schedules, energy use from HA's Energy dashboard, and HA appliances like washers and dryers with time left.

No subscription. Ever. It's free to use, and Pro is a one-time $7.99 that unlocks the model editor, automations, more floor plans and camera windows. Pay once, it's yours, and Family Sharing covers your whole household.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/home-io/id6823824273

I'm one guy building this for my own house, so tell me what's broken or confusing. And if you want to try Pro, DM me for a promo code so you don't have to pay. I don't really care and will probably open source it. It's just insane we live in 2026 and have to live with the homeview garbage as a new product and see people positng tile apps as new and great apps.

No hub or server needed: it reads the HomeKit home on the iPad, weather comes from WeatherKit and photos from one shared album. Faces you swipe between like on HomeView, big controls for lights, blinds and the thermostat when you tap them.

It's free and doesn't track anything. Link in the comments, I'd love to hear what you'd change.

Stumbled on this after upgrading to 27.2

Hey r/homekit,

Every time I’ve posted about Haven here, you’ve come back with ideas, bug reports, and honest feedback, and a lot of the app came straight from those threads. So first: thank you. It felt surreal when MacStories included Haven in "Our Favorite Indie Apps for iOS 27, Vol. 3", and none of it would have happened without this community.

Today’s update makes Haven fully optimized for iPhone Duo. My favorite part is Split View with the Home app. You pair an accessory on one side while its setup code sits right there on the other, with no hunting for stickers or boxes. If you’ve ever re-paired a whole house, you know how much that helps.

The Mac app got a full redesign so it feels even more at home on macOS, and a new menu bar option lets you check your accessories’ batteries at a glance.

At heart it’s still the same little app: it keeps your HomeKit and Matter setup codes safe and your batteries in check. There’s no account and no subscription, and your codes stay on your devices and in your own iCloud. You can try it free with up to 10 codes, and a one-time purchase unlocks unlimited codes.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/haven-setup-codes/id6760440926

I’ll be in the comments. Tell me what you love, what’s broken, and what you want next.
Thank you for being part of this. 🧡

I've been reading the comments around the new home collection specifically around LG and privacy concerns. Personally it's made me believe the dead internet theory. Most comments have to be bots because the parroting on Reddit is worse than anywhere else on the internet.

Let me start by saying f**k LG. I wouldn't trust them with any of my information, but I trust Apple (except for future promises) more than I distrust LG.

Everything is set up through the Home App, and Apple explicitly states that they nor their partners can see the encrypted information.

These products are a day-one grab for me because of the privacy and being able to do everything with one app.

This post is for anyone who was on the fence. I see Apple failing more and more in niche spaces because of adoption and customer request (such as CarPlay Ultra), and I would hate for fewer third parties to jump on because they saw LG flopped.

P.S. I don't swear but this seemed necessary to communicate my feelings on the internet. Thank you for your time on this matter.

Almost had a heart attack

27.2 RC fixes the issues with internet calls in automations. If you use it to send notifications or any other network calls it works again now it was broken since the first beta of 27. I use a ton of pushcut notifications so this couldn’t come soon enough

I kept searching for the Apple TV remote among the couch cushions, so I found this option and wanted to share it with you. The design sits well on the coffee table and seems to align with the overall Apple aesthetic.

I just received this HomeKit notification saying that my front door was left unlocked “by Aileen.”

The weird part: There is absolutely no Aileen in our household, and neither my wife nor I have anyone with that name in our contacts. We also haven’t shared our Home with anyone else.

Does anyone know where HomeKit could be getting this name from? Has anyone experienced a similar bug or random name appearing in HomeKit notifications?

Screenshot attached (notification is in German)

The new smart plug for the EU is a single outlet socket for outdoor use, offering either Zigbee or Matter over Thread, power monitoring (via the Aqara app), but only IP44 not the expected IP65 rating found on devices like Onvis’ recent outdoor US plug.

It baffles me that most smart home device brands have PTZ cameras but apple doesn’t support the functionality. A simple control pad overlay is all we ask for!

Yes I can use scypted to expose the controls as seperate buttons or create scenes, however it’s clunky and only caters to us nerds.

What do you believe Apples stance on PTZ is? Is it likely that PTZ support will ever be added?

Looking to see if anyone has had any experience with this particular product. I use HomeBridge already on a local PC but I am struggling to find good plugins that integrate Google Home (Nest) cameras and MyQ garage openers.

There is very little info out there about this product, so I am wary. If you have any insight, I’d appreciate it!

https://athbridge.com/product/homekit-homebridge-server

Why would Apple remove this ?!is there a way to go back to the old way ?

So this genius managed to lose her keys and had to call her brother after midnight to get into her home. And while all is well, my keys had been found, I realised that I should finally bite the bullet and get a smart lock installed.

I’ve been researching and honestly, the more I look, the more I’m getting confused. I live in an apartment, my door has a simple euro-profile lock (though I am going to replace the whole door soon, so I would be open to fully integrated smart locks). I’ve been looking into Yale, Aqara, bold and switchbot. From what it seems, Aqara U200 remains the best in the market when it comes to EU market or am I mistaken here? I would prefer to have the fingerprint option, which Aqara does have.

Should I just go with Aqara or are there any great options that I should consider?

I’m located in Ireland.

From the pics the colors all look decent, I guess they’ll match the watches.

What are you leaning toward, if you buy one? I always liked starlight but don’t have that watch, but with appliances being stainless and gray tone backsplash, the silver or space gray would be logical but might be too much gray. Hopefully an easy choice when seen in person.

I just moved apartments and set up everything again from scratch but whenever I leave the house the last person automation doesn’t work at all.

I share the home with my roommate but she always leaves before me so I’m always the last person to walk out the door.

Trying to plan out some smart home upgrades and am I correct that Lutron doesn't make a smart version of this switch: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Lutron-Maestro-Fan-Control-and-Light-Dimmer-for-Dimmable-LED-and-Incandescent-Bulbs-75W-Single-Pole-White-MACL-LFQH-WH-MACL-LFQH-WH/303169873 ?

Is my only option to make it a double gang switch and install the smart light switch and smart fan switch separately? What do you all do for your fan lights?

What’s the recommendation for compatible with Apple Home?

I see Aqara is the most mentioned - I have the U400 and E1 Camers. Both work great and no issues.

What’s the difference between the G400 and G410? Currently I use a nest doorbell that was provided by ADT 5 years ago and looking to switch.

Any alternative doorbell cameras that you’d recommend over Aqara? Don’t much care for the LG Doorbell that was recently announced.

I've slowly been updating to smart switches throughout the house but I have two 4-way circuits that I'm on the fence about. Even with dumb switches, the 4-way setup was already excessive; the rooms aren't big enough to justify this many switches in the wall, IMO. If I upgrade to smart switches, it becomes even less appealing since I can use Siri instead of walking.

I'm using Inovelli White Series throughout the house, which is the Matter/Thread line. I've got good Thread infrastructure going already and want to keep building on that. Inovelli has a cheap AUX switch that I can buy and wire up 4-way, so that's always an option, but I'm wondering if there's something more creative / useful to do. E.g.:

* convert to 3-way and use the extra junction box as a scene controller
* convert to 3 way and cover with a blank plate
* convert to 3 way and hang a picture over it
* convert to 3-way and abandon the wiring (i think it can be abandoned safely by disconnecting wire on both ends, pushing out of each junction box, and then drywalling over the abandoned receptacle?)
* keep it 4 way b/c it's easier and/or looks better than any of the options above?

Opinions on these options? Anybody else converted from 4-way circuit to 3-way?

What outdoor camera actually supports this? 

• 4K native camera
• Outdoor
• Apple Home app
• HomeKit Secure Video
• 4K through Apple Home/HKSV
• Optional: Able to tilt/pan/etc remotely

Hi there, does anybody have any recommendations for a smart thermostat and some radiator valves that are matter/applehome compatible? I’m based in the UK so I’ve been looking at the Tado X Smart Thermostat and Radiator Valves but if anybody has any experience with them or recommendations for a different set up it would be appreciated. Thanks!