Apple Makes a New Move for Home Automation with HomeKit
We have been hearing different reports saying Apple is planning to announce a new Smart Home experience at its annual WWDC event. So, Apple approves them by announcing Homekit, its first move for home automation at its Worldwide Developers Conference.
Now, users can interact with the things at their homes with the help of iOS devices. Your entire home now can be controlled remotely using your iPhone or iPad. For instance, users can control their door locks, grarage doors, webcams, lights and thermostats using HomeKit app in iOS 8.
Once you got all of your home devices integrated with HomeKit, you can create different scenes like when you’re dozing and want to fall asleep, you just need to say ‘Go to bed’ to Siri. Then your iPhone will take the responsibility making sure all the doors and lights are turned off. You can also customize the lights and other devices which you think shouldn’t be working while you’re having sleep.
‘There are a lot of great home automation devices coming on the market these days,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of software engineering, said during the keynote event. “And they all have apps.”
Apple also mentioned the names of device manufacturers with whom this system will be working. Among them there’re some big names including Schlage, Haier and Philips. Let me tell you one thing, any device can go with Homekit if it is MFi certified meaning it contains a wireless chip that can be communicated over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or ZigBee. But, Apple didn’t specify any communication protocol in the event.
Overall, it’s a good move of Apple for the home automation as its competitors like Samsung and Google have already introduced their Smart Home concepts. Unfortunately, we can’t get our hands on it until Apple finally releases iOS 8 along with a new iPhone 6 in the fall of this year.
Category: News
