You can also specify events based on the first to arrive and last to leave rather than specific people, but these can also be based on a filtered group of home members. Interestingly the ability to select specific users is limited to the Home app, the third party offerings can only use Anyone. These events can be for one or more members of the Home specified as Anyone or by selecting specific users. The Home app calls these “ People Arrive” and “ People Leave”. Select the type of trigger you want to use from the list. Here’s how to create these various trigger actions: The Home app allows almost full use of the trigger types support by HomeKit, with some limitations. The first step in creating any automation is to select a trigger. Apart from the Eve app, these are not free, but if you want to get the full benefits of HomeKit automations it’s a small outlay compared to your likely spend on accessories.īeing the most basic automation type, these are easily created in the Home app. Here are a few that have automation specific benefits. In order to unlock some of the advanced functionality of HomeKit, you'll need a third party app. Now we know the kinds of things we could do, let’s look at how we can accomplish these in HomeKit and what the limitations are starting with the tools we’ll need. HomeKit does not overtly support these, but these are some ways around that. Some uses of this kind of rule include things like seasonal changes, and manual overrides which can make your home a lot smarter and avoid some of the frustration that can result from inappropriate automatic behaviors. These can be loosely defined with terms like while, unless, and until. This extends conditional rules to include exceptions and limits. Stacked Conditionals (if A and B then C while/until D) This can be as an overall capability allowing the entire rule to be delayed up front, or it can be a delay to undo (or turn off) the actions after the fact. Delay Actions (if A then B after X mins)Īctions can be delayed by a given time interval before being performed. HomeKit supports all of these to some level. If conditions are supported, more than one can typically be combined with AND and OR options (all conditions, or any one of the conditions). The filters are similar to triggers being device state, sensor thresholds, geofence presence, time and date. Conditional Actions (if A and B then C)Īn extension of the above with the ability to define filters that must be passed before the actions will be performed. The input can be a device control event (a device did something), a sensor detects something (motion sensor, temperature, light level etc), a schedule event (a fixed time or date), or a geofence event (someone arrives or leaves a given location) which are useful for location based routines. One input is used to trigger another action. The most common, and indeed the basis of the platform IFTTT. These can be classified as: Trigger Actions (if A then B) Smart home platforms implement rules in different ways, but they generally fall into some broad categories, not all of which are supported by every platform. It’s worth pointing out at this point that for any of these home automations to work reliably, or at all, you’ll need a home hub such as an Apple TV as part of your HomeKit set up. This will involve some third party apps, as this is the only way to access some of these features for the time being. We’re going to go into all the types of automation rules HomeKit supports, and how to implement them. A vital feature for smart home platforms, though, is the ability to create automation rules (which Apple simply calls HomeKit automations), and HomeKit actually offers more in this area than Apple’s own Home app exposes. Apple HomeKit, Apple’s smart home platform, offers a number of benefits for building a smart home, particularly around privacy, security and ease of use.
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