![]() The location of the control panel – between living room and winter garden – makes it as convenient as normal light switches. The only way out is to triple-click it again and enter the passcode, so if they don’t know that, the Home app is all they can use. You then just open the Home app and triple-click the Home button to lock it into the app. This lets you set a passcode (which I kept the same as the iPad one). Settings > General > Scroll down to Learning > Guided Access > On. Third, I set the iPad to never power down: Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-Lock > Never.įourth, I made sure the Favorites in the Home app only had things they will actually need to control, which means that all Scenes and devices are visible on a single screen.įinally, I wanted to ensure visitors could only use the Home app, so I used Guided Access to achieve this. If I were wall-mounting it instead, I’d have used a cable raceway to hide the cable from site, but in this case it was already hidden by the bookshelf. ![]() Second, I needed a 10-foot long Lightning cable, to reach from the nearest power socket and go behind the bookshelf. This has a metallic sticker you affix to the back of the iPad, and a magnet you fix to the wall. Set upįirst, I got a magnetic mounting kit to attach the iPad to a wall – or, in our case, the end of a bookshelf. They aren’t worth that much these days, so that made it a pretty economic option to repurpose it as a home control panel. Which was when I realised we had a spare iPad. When I got my 12.9-inch iPad, Steph inherited my 10.5-inch one – leaving her old iPad Air surplus to requirements. Which means we may not be here when they arrive, leading to the potential that – for whatever reason – they find they can’t control anything. To add to the complications, we’re planning on doing either apartment swaps for holidays, or using a service like Trusted Housesitters to have someone take care of the cats while we’re away. And even if they have an iPhone, you need to authorize them and de-authorize them afterwards. They of course need an Apple device to run it, so Android owners are out of luck. ![]() Then when we want a lot of light, aka the overhead lights, we can just say ‘Siri, switch on the dining room lights.’Įqually, setting up guests with access to the Home app isn’t entirely straightforward. But the 4K model has a dramatically faster processor and more built-in storage, plus Gigabit Ethernet for speedier networking.For example, we have a lot of Hue lighting in the living room, so for the two overhead lights we decided to put them in a fictitious room called the Dining Room (which in reality is combined with the living room). Both the Apple TV 4K and the previous (4th generation) model are excellent, if pricey, media streamers. And when you’re in front of the TV, you can use the remote as a microphone to command Siri to trigger or check on devices. Once logged in, your Apple TV becomes the point of communication for all your devices via Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth. We recommend the Apple TV over the other options because it does double duty as a great media streamer in addition to providing solid communication with both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth smart devices we added a second unit to reach distant Bluetooth devices on another floor (in our testing we found that the HomePod Mini, though cheaper and also useful, currently suffers from issues communicating with Bluetooth HomeKit devices). If you want to stay in touch with your smart devices when you leave home, you need to add a HomeKit hub-either an Apple TV, an iPad, or a HomePod Mini (the original HomePod, which is discontinued, can work as well). Although it’s certainly possible to have a home with multiple smart-home platforms, with each running different sets of devices, it adds a layer of complexity that may not appeal to everyone. This point is especially important if you already own smart devices and hope to have them all work together (devices that rely on wireless Zigbee and Z-Wave, for instance, may not be compatible). And there remain a few categories of devices for which no great HomeKit option exists, most notably smart smoke alarms. (By comparison, far more devices are compatible with Amazon Alexa, and many also work with Google Assistant/Google Home). ![]() Similar to the way computers can support only compatible versions of software, any smart device you hope to use has to be “HomeKit-enabled.” (That all smart devices aren’t mutually compatible remains one of the longstanding shortcomings of the smart home in general.) Although many popular models of smart-home devices (thermostats, locks, plugs, bulbs, switches, and so on) are HomeKit-compatible, there are plenty that aren’t, including many of our top picks. You’ll also need to pay attention when you’re picking smart devices.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |