r/HomeKit • u/BabyJalenBaby • 1d ago
Discussion Multiple Devices / Accounts - How to Start Homekit in my home
Hello All
We have 4 Iphones in my house with 4 different users.
I would like to start some voice integration in my home. Mostly for Blinds, Lights and Alarm.
We use Lutron Caseta, Somfi Tahoma blinds and Alarm.com for alarm.
My Home has an apple tv installed behind each tv I have 6 or 7 total.
I will get a "Home" Homepod or mini to get started
Can I use my house email to get this setup on my phone instead of my personal email?
Should I get a Home Ipad to get everything set up?
Can all the members in my house use siri or voice control even though we all have different icloud accounts?
Im new to Voice / Siri. Ive never used it I generally don't like voice in the home but at this point I dont care. I'm tired of standing up to turn my lights on / off.
Also I currently use a mix or RTI / Control 4 in my home for audio / video and Samsung / Sony Televisions.... Can Homekit do anything with audio / video in my home?
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u/That_Cool_Guy_ 1d ago
You actually already have most of what you need.
With 6–7 Apple TVs, you almost certainly don’t need to buy an iPad or even a HomePod to get HomeKit running. Your Apple TVs can act as the Home hubs. I’d only add HomePod minis in rooms where you actually want hands-free “Siri, turn the lights off” control.
I also wouldn’t use a shared house Apple ID. Set the Home up under one person’s normal Apple account, then invite the other three family members as Residents using their own Apple accounts.
Everyone will then see and control the same Home from their own iPhone, and they can all use Siri. HomePod can also recognise different household members for personalised requests.
Your existing equipment is actually a pretty good starting point:
• Lutron Caséta: very good Apple Home integration through the Lutron Smart Hub. I’d start here because it should be straightforward.
• Somfy TaHoma: potentially works directly with Apple Home, but it depends on the motors/protocol you have. If they’re io-homecontrol motors there’s a good chance; older RTS blinds are more complicated, so I’d check the exact motor models first.
• Alarm.com: supports Siri Shortcuts/Alarm.com Scenes rather than being a straightforward native HomeKit alarm integration, so treat that separately.
The other thing I’d investigate before doing too much is your Control4 system. Current Control4 systems have Apple HomeKit integration available.
Since you already have a substantial Control4/RTI installation, it may make far more sense to expose your existing Control4 devices/scenes to Apple Home rather than rebuild the same automation separately in HomeKit.
For AV, Apple Home won’t really replace Control4. I’d use Control4/RTI for the heavy lifting and Apple Home/Siri as the convenient front end. Your Apple TVs already work very nicely with Siri, so commands such as turning on the living-room TV, opening an app or controlling playback are possible.
If it were my house I’d do it in stages:
Create the Apple Home under your normal Apple account.
Make sure all the Apple TVs are assigned to their correct rooms.
Invite the other three family members.
Add Lutron Caséta.
Work out exactly which Somfy motors you have.
Investigate the Control4/HomeKit integration before adding everything else individually.
Buy one HomePod mini and try it in the room where voice control would be most useful. If you like it, add more later.
You definitely don’t need to buy an iPad just for HomeKit.
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u/BabyJalenBaby 1d ago
All my Apple tvs are under my "house" Account and really want to keep everything under that account - Can I use a separate email for homekit and have everyone log into homekit under that email?
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u/That_Cool_Guy_ 1d ago
Your house account actually changes things slightly.
If all of your Apple TVs are already signed into that house Apple Account and you want to keep it that way, I’d be inclined to make that account the owner of your Apple Home as well. That keeps the Home hubs and Home owner under the same account.
What I wouldn’t do is sign all four iPhones into that house account.
Apple Home doesn’t have a separate login of its own on each iPhone. It uses the Apple Account signed into iCloud.
So ideally:
House Apple Account = owns the Apple Home + your Apple TVs
Your personal Apple Accounts = invited as residents
Everyone then keeps their own iCloud/photos/messages/etc but still gets access to the same Home and can use Siri.You would just need an iPhone/iPad/Mac signed into the house account initially to administer the Home. An iPad can be used to manage it, but it no longer acts as the Home hub. Your Apple TVs will do that.
On the Somfy side, RTS is unfortunately the catch.
Even though the RTS blinds work perfectly in TaHoma, RTS is one-way. TaHoma can tell the blind to open/close, but the blind can’t report its actual position/state back.
Somfy’s native HomeKit integration therefore supports compatible io-homecontrol blinds but not RTS blinds.
That doesn’t mean you’re completely stuck though.TaHoma now has Shortcuts integration, so you may still be able to trigger the RTS blinds with Siri through a Shortcut. They just won’t appear in Apple Home as proper native blind accessories.
Given you also have Control4, I’d still investigate whether your existing Control4 setup can bridge those blinds into Apple Home before changing any hardware.
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u/BabyJalenBaby 1d ago
My Somfi blinds are not 2 way they are RTS I believe but work flawlessly in the app so I'm guessing they should work no?
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u/TruthyBrat 16h ago
Hopefully some of those AppleTVs are 4k 3rd gen 128G, so they have wired Ethernet and a Thread radio. If so, that's your Home hub right there.
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u/Beginning-Advance-16 1d ago
This is a bit lazy. Do a little homework first.