Hi!

I promise I searched all over for an answer but I'm also not a very tech-literate person.

I bought a few IKEA smart home devices. Specifically:

• Dirigera hub
• Bilresa remote controls
• Grillplats plug
• Kajplats smart bulbs

Meanwhile the only relevant devices I have are an iPhone 12 and a limited amount of patience to spare

After getting all of it and making sense of the hieroglyphics, I attempted to set up the items in the IKEA home app and nothing connected. I tried:

• resetting the IKEA devices
• resetting the hub
• resetting my phone
• resetting the apps
• praying to god
• changing the router to 2.4ghz only
• clearing all homekit and IKEA home data off my phone
• resetting everything again
• praying to Buddha
• attempting everything in a different room
• resetting everything yet again

Eventually I made some progress trying to connect directly to homekit only to get the error message that I can't connect it because my phone isn't threads enabled. Meanwhile connecting only to IKEA home app wouldn't work at all. It would either time out or say it couldn't pair the device.

So I'm at a loss. Am I missing something or do I need to buy yet another apple product just to turn on light bulbs in my house? I'm not very technical. I did the best I could (hell, just figuring out the whole 5ghz/2.4ghz thing was the most technical thing I've done in years)

I eventually just connected the devices straight to the remote but I was hoping to have the bulbs in the bedroom turn on in the mornings to wake me up. Is that hopeless for me?

Thanks in advance for any help. Feel free to roast me if you want. I've already committed heresy trying to get this damn thing to work, I have no shame left.

hey everyone? quite new to the apple home world. i currently use aidot e27 bulbs connected to my homepod, but im struggling to find e14 that is compatible with apple home? does anyone have any recommendations or amazon links?:)) thank you so much!

After updating the iOS Companion app to **2026.7.2**, the **Activate** button on the server screen does absolutely nothing. No spinner, no error, no response. I just can’t get ‘in’ and to my dashboards etc.

iPhone 16 Pro (iOS 26.5.2)
Home Assistant via Tailscale

The strange thing is that I **haven’t updated the app on my iPad** (still on **2026.7.0**) and everything works perfectly there with the exact same Home Assistant instance.
On the iPhone I’m already logged in, WebSocket is connected, the app connects via the external URL, **and I still receive all Home Assistant push notifications**.
I’ve already tried force closing the app, restarting the iPhone, confirming Tailscale is connected, updating server information, and refreshing Local Push. The **Activate** button still does nothing.
Has anyone else run into this with **2026.7.2**? Any workaround besides deleting and reinstalling the app?
Big thnx in advance!!

Currently, it looks like this is yet another year where homekit is sort of thrown on the back burner. Don't get me wrong, 4K homekit secure video recording, AI driven video summaries, natural language camera search, and built-in energy monitoring are all very cool. But honestly this is very, very slim for this current day and age with AI and all.

The app looks pretty much the same, and there's still ZERO mention of actual proper integration between shortcuts and Homekit. Why are these two treated as separate systems, with the user forced to choose between local automation with a bunch of features or home automation that has fuck all in terms of options to choose from? Why not let us combine the two? Apple should and could very easily integrate just these two to such a degree that allow the user to come very, very close to that Iron Man esque smart home. Why they're not doing that, who knows.

I know there's hype for the homehub, a set of new homepods, and a new apple TV releasing later this year, but that's probably, at the earliest, sometime in November, as its own little event so as not to conflict too much with the September event and the iPhone releases and the hype around those.

It just feels bad knowing this might be yet another year where homekit and actual, proper automations are all but a fever dream and won't happen.

Had issues with my ecobee just straight up being off that was resolved after “unplugging” and plugging in

Got me thinking about how many people have “dumb” thermostats for decades.

For certain things that aren’t consumables like lights (mainly shades, temp sensors, cameras, ) how long do you expect it to last?

Edit: people are referring to app support. I more meant like if your smart plug stopped working after 10 years would you accept it or think like “there’s houses that are 100 years old and their outlets work just fine”

Everything was working fine, then one day my HomeKit accessories started showing “Not Responding”. At first, tapping them a few times would make them update and work, but now everything is not wokring.

I have a mix of Aqara, Govee and generic smart plugs. All devices work fine in their own apps, but not in Apple Home.

The strange part: when I removed my HomePod mini from HomeKit, everything started working again. As soon as I added the HomePod mini back, everything went back to “Not Responding”.

I’ve already reset the HomePod, restarted my Wi-Fi, and removed/re-added accessories from HomeKit, but nothing has fixed it.

Does this point to a HomePod/Home Hub issue? Any ideas what else I can try?

Hi everyone! I hope you’re all doing well!

Reaching out for some help/advice, as I’m planning an Apple Home setup but don’t know much about the subject.
Basically, I want to make my lights and blinds smart (approximately 15 lighting circuits and 6 blinds). I might eventually add a heat pump, HRV/ERV system, A/C units, etc., but I’d rather not overcomplicate things at this initial stage.

My current setup is:
Wired internet in every room
2 Ubiquiti UniFi 7 Lite APs + UniFi Switch 8 PoE Lite for Wi-Fi
Apple TV 4K as the HomeKit hub

I’m considering two options:
Lights – Sonoff ZBMiniR2 / Sonoff Mini ZB2GS
Blinds – Sonoff Mini ZBRBS
Outlets – Sonoff Mini ZB1GSP
Sonoff Zigbee Bridge Ultra to connect everything to HomeKit via Matter

or

Lights – Shelly 1PM Gen4
Blinds – Shelly 2PM Gen4
Outlets – Shelly 1PM Gen4
Everything connected to HomeKit via Matter over Wi-Fi

Which option would you choose, taking into account i’m in Europe.
I’m leaning towards the Sonoff option, as everything would connect via Zigbee without overloading the Wi-Fi network. I know Shelly can work with Zigbee, but I’m not sure which bridge I’d need to use...

Thanks everyone!

Sorry if this seems ranty.

I recently went “all in” on HomeKit,fuelled by the ludicrously cheap IKEA sensors. I bought contact sensors, leak sensors, humidity sensors, converted all my lamps to smart plugs and switches, then went on holiday for two weeks.

On day 2 my entire smart home went down and said it was unreachable and, crucially, someone staying in the house said that nothing worked locally (which rules out any local iPhone issues). I had that person update the AppleTv multiple times, reboot the router, power cycle everything, and it STILL isn’t reachable. Most confusingly the Home app on the iPhone reports that an update is required on the apple TV which is not true). I’ve uninstalled and installed the home app on my iPhone.

I’m sure that when I get home it’ll all work again as soon as I walk through the door, but this raises bigger questions: have I banked on the wrong system here? I’m a self-confessed Apple whore, so I’ve always wanted to have everything be “pure Apple”, but would, say, running Home Assistany on an rpi help me here?

Moreover, I’d love to know more what you guys would have done differently to make this bulletproof. From perspective it just suddenly failed with no way to recover, and left my house non-functional and insecure. Is the answer to get a cheap HomePod Mini as backup? Tapo plugs to power cycle? Just turning off automatic updates? UPS? Something else I don’t know? grrrr!

(For what it’s worth I’ve tried every version of restarting, updating and power cycling every component in the chain and I’m on the latest stable os on all devices).

Thanks a million

I want to create an automation when the sun sets but only if someone is at home, but then it does not work. „Find My“ is activated. Also Location for the HomeKit-App. My adress is my contact. My HomePod mini is connected to the same network. iCloud for Home is also active. What am doing wrong?

Just got my first watch, but it’s not doing what I expected. I have a lot of smart plugs controlling things around my house, and until now I’ve used Alexa and the Alexa app and widget on my iPhone to control them. I expected to just have the same widget on my watch, but it’s not available. What are other people using to control these?

The brands do not link to HomeKit, I tried a lot of ways for that. I was able to make a shortcut that just goes back to Alexa, but I can’t see from the watch if the device is on or not.

The main benefit of the Alexa widget is I could see what was powered on. One of the plugs controls an outdoor receiver and speakers, it’s been accidentally left on and my neighbors get to listen to my kids iPad playing Netflix on max volume because they couldn’t hear it… so now I double check with the app and widget.

Any advice? What apps are you using?

Why is it that keyboard shortcuts like Command+W or ESC don't work in Homekit for Mac? I feel that the UI goes against all MacOS design standards.

Will this be fixed in MacOS 27?

Recently moved into a new house that has two locks. I had an Aqara U50 at my old place but is there a lock or other solution that accommodates my new door?
Pictured is my door from the inside, with a deadbolt lock and a door knob lock.

I recently moved and am trying to install an MSG 200 for 2 garage doors. Previous owner had a MyQ so I had to get the compatibility device. Sensors work and are properly placed, set up the compatibility device where each button on it can control garage doors, and have it connected to the wires on MSG200. Whenever I tell Siri to open the doors though, I hear it click as if it is trying to trigger the doors, but nothing happens. Then I end up getting an obstructed warning on the garage door.

What am I doing wrong?

Just wanted to share a quick thought on the Apple Intelligence video understanding feature in Apple Home so far after I enabled it a few hours ago.

The video summaries are far more detailed than I expected. But of course, my use case is pretty simple. I’m basically recording indoor scenes with only myself in the frame. But it honestly feels like it’s catching every little thing I do around the house, and tell me exacty what I've done... It’s kind of incredible how much context it picks up instead of just saying “someone entered the room.” I’ve been really impressed with it so far.

I’m also curious to see what people come up with once the public release is out. I have a feeling we’ll start seeing some really creative ways people use their Home Cameras beyond just security, maybe automation ideas, pet monitoring, daily logs, or things nobody has thought of yet. Really excited to see where this goes.

I told my HomePod mini "It's bedtime", which is a scene that turns off some lights in my house. thats it. Instead of running the shortcut, it will say something like "you need to continue on a companion device". then I usually have to unlock my phone and it will then take 10+ seconds to run the scene. Sometimes it will say "working..............Im having trouble with the connection........something went wrong". It's usually just faster to locate my phone and run he scene manually, which defeats the point.

This time I got something super weird that ive never heard before. I tried to see if I cold get lucky and have the HomePod run the scene and after around 12 seconds of thinking it said "domain error W-F-7". I didn't catch the whole thing, but ive never seen that before.

Anyways, what the heck is that error message and why can't my HomePod run a scene? its connected to the wifi. I can see it in HomeKit. I can select it as an airplay device and do music to it just fine. I just can't use Siri on it for anything meaningful. Any help?

Hi all!

My husband and I are currently under contract on our first home and are stumped with how to proceed regarding our home security. Every home security provider we talk to just sounds like tons of money monthly leaving for their memberships and fees and crappy systems.

That being said, is anyone on here using their HomeKit set up just for security? We just want the bare bones to start off with since we are moving to from an 800 sq ft apartment to a 2200 sq ft house lol! We only have a ring camera that we pay a basic subscription for but that’s it.

Based on our research we are thinking for buying the following for the house to start off with and would like some input:

-IKEA MYGGBETT door/window sensors
-Schlage Deadbolts (basic nothing fancy)
-Eve Outdoor Cam Floodlight Camera OR Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight Camera or a Ring Floodlight Camera

Thank you so much in advance!!

Edit for clarity: we are mostly hoping for self monitoring and having video footage incase something does happen. We purchased in a pretty quiet and safe neighborhood so we aren’t too worried about break ins (we wfh). We are just wanting something that is a good foundation to grow into since we are planning on also being foster parents soon!

been trying to make the air in my bedroom a little more comfortable, especially at night, and I'd like something that fits into my existing HomeKit setup instead of using another separate app.

Has anyone found a smart humidifier that has been reliable with HomeKit over the long term? I'm more interested in stable automations than having a bunch of extra features. I appreciate the suggestions.

Once I subscribed the 2TB iCloud, and update my HomePod Mini to OS 27 beta, this option finally pops out. It wasn't there before.
I was worried that the HomePod mini might not get Apple Intelligence, but it looks like that concern was unnecessary :)

Its eufy doorbell c30

I'm trying to setup an automation that will fire when the last person in my family leaves the house. There are four of us using iPhones. Each has location sharing enabled with the family, however only two of us have the "always" option under privacy & security > location services > home. The other two just have "while using."

1. Why would only two of us have "always" as an option?
   
2. Can we just use the "while using" option or does it need to be "always" for location triggers to work?

Long-time lurker in this sub. About 10 months ago I posted here looking for early feedback on a HomeKit app built around a 3D scan of your real home.

Today it's finally on the App Store. It's called Habitat.

Like a lot of you, I spent years waiting for Apple to give the Home app real attention. Every June I'd watch the WWDC keynote thinking this is the year, and every year it was mostly a disappointment. At some point I stopped waiting and started building the app I'd always imagined Apple would make if they cared about this the way we do. It does a lot, so bear with me.

Your actual home , and everything the platform should have learned about it by now.

It starts with the model: you walk through your home with your iPhone and scan it (RoomPlan/LiDAR, takes a few minutes), and Habitat builds an interactive 3D model of your real house, a digital twin. Your devices live where they physically are. Tap the lamp in the corner of your living room to control that actual lamp. Dim the ceiling light and watch the 3D model light up with it.

Every floor plan app I tried rendered your home as flat pastel rectangles, and it always bothered me. I work as a 3D software engineer, so I did the reasonable thing, I wrote a custom path tracer in Metal, from scratch, just for this app.

What that means in practice:

• Real soft shadows and light falloff, the model looks like an architect's physical miniature sitting in soft studio light.
• When you turn on a light in your home, it casts actual light in the model. Your home at night looks lit, because it is.
• It's fully interactive: tap any room or device marker directly in the ray-traced view, highlight rooms, see labels. It's not a pretty screenshot, it's the main UI.

HomeKit is the control layer. Home Assistant is the memory.

Here's the thing I eventually accepted about HomeKit: it's a great way to control your home, but it knows almost nothing about your home. The API has zero history, ask HomeKit what your bedroom temperature was an hour ago and the answer is nobody knows. That number is gone forever.

Meanwhile, there's Home Assistant, which is quietly the best system that exists for storing data about your home, locally. It sits on a little box in your house, sees everything, records everything, and none of it ever leaves your network or gets sold to anyone. Every sensor reading, every state change, months of it, sitting on your own hardware. The problem was never the data, it was that no app made that data feel like part of your actual home.

So Habitat treats Home Assistant as an optional superpower. You don't need it; pure HomeKit works great on its own. But if you have it (or this post finally convinces you to set up that Raspberry Pi), Habitat merges it with HomeKit into one home. Together they supercharge each other.

• History and stats. Habitat pulls Home Assistant's recorded history straight into the app, so every sensor gets a graph. Temperature, humidity, whatever you track. Tap a sensor and see the actual curve: how the bedroom drops overnight, how fast the living room heats up when the sun hits it, how humidity spikes when someone showers. Combined with the heatmaps, you're not just seeing your home's climate right now, you're seeing how it behaves.
• Devices HomeKit can't even see. HA covers what HomeKit can't, HomeKit covers the rest, and you never think about which platform a device came from.
• Richer state. Where HomeKit gives you "on/off," Home Assistant often knows the full story, like the vacuum's exact status and battery, which is what lets us render its position in the 3D scene.
• Painless setup. Habitat discovers Home Assistant on your network automatically. It supports both a local and an external URL with automatic failover, so it works the same on your couch and away from home.
• Live everything. State changes stream in over websockets and show up on the 3D model the moment they happen.

The features I always wished existed:

• 3D. A digital twin of the home
• Temperature heatmaps. Your temperature sensors get blended into a smooth gradient painted across the 3D floor, so you can see that the bedroom runs cold and the office bakes in the afternoon.
• Robot vacuum. Live map from Home Assistant with your robot rendered in 3D driving around your floor plan, plus a full vacuum controller — start, dock, battery, status. Watching the little guy roam your ray-traced house never gets old.
• An Apple TV app. A glanceable 3D dashboard of your whole home on the big screen, device states, climate overlay, synced automatically over iCloud. My home basically lives on the TV now. Adjust the lights right from the Apple TV.
• AR remote. Use your iPhone or iPad as a remote. Just point at the device you want to control.
• Sensor history graphs.
• All the utilities. Such as QR codes and overview of batteries
• Per-home and per-room controls and brightness.
• Over a hundred custom-drawn icons for lamps, plugs, sensors, scenes and furniture
• Runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Mac.

Privacy: the same philosophy as Home Assistant itself. No account, no server of mine, no analytics. Your scans, layouts and settings sync between your devices through your own iCloud, and your home's data stays between your HomeKit hub, your HA box, and your devices.

There will be bugs. An app that touches HomeKit, Home Assistant, LiDAR scanning, ray tracing, AR, CloudKit sync and tvOS at the same time has a truly impressive number of ways to break, and I'm one person, but I am working actively to remove them as fast as possible. You can expect rapid updates, and a roadmap driven by what you actually want. If something breaks, tell me and I will genuinely be on it. Everything above exists today, and there is a bunch of new features already ready to be released soon.

Pricing: the core app is free. The full feature set is a one-time purchase or subscription (per family). 7 day free trial. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac. (Mac is still awaiting approval from Apple.)

• App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/habitat-3d-smart-home/id6790552615
• Website: https://habitat-smart.app
• Video: https://youtube.com/shorts/Pm0e8nNW10Q?feature=share

What's the features you've been waiting years for Apple to build?