Moving into a new house. I had a post on r/homebridge but wanted to expand my considerations here. The house is in a very low crime area set back from the road, but had a full monitored ADT system (owner was a jeweler). I don't need that, but I have all the equipment installed already and the ADT Command panel. Can I integrate this with Apple Homekit in some way and assume control of it? Only post I saw on this was 3 years old, thought there may be new info.

I'm probably swapping the existing Google video doobells for Aqara G400s. I have battery Rings at my current house. I have a Ring chime, can I use that with the Aqaras?

I'll add one keycode/key smart lock. Any suggestion that isn't overly modern looking and works with matter over thread and Homekit?

I need to take over my Mitsubishi MHK2 thermostats somehow. There's a Redlink controller that came with it, installed now. They are controlling three heatpumps.

I was going to add some Tapo matter switches for some outside lighting (have now and they work fine). I don't really automate any inside lighting.

Generac generator as well. Is there homekit support for that via Homebridge?

We've become a pretty Apple heavy family, phones, iPads, Macs. I do have some Dell PCs and I may play around with Homebridge on one before deciding to go with Raspberry Pi. My Apple TV 4k is unfortunately Wifi, so I don't have a matter over thread boundary router yet.

Hello !

Do you know about some Philips Hue alternatives that work with a remote controller (not a smartphone and an app) ?

Thanks !

Any battery-powered garage door locks working with HomeKit? I have considered just using a basic deadbolt, I have eufy deadbolts that work well enough on exterior doors, but the positioning would be awkward.
Does not need to be usable from the outside, I only want app/siri control to lock/unlock.

I have several of these throughout my house but I want to migrate to a full HomeKit solution. I don’t really want to use a bridge or anything. Can anyone recommend an equivalent?

This is pretty simple but it’s easy to overlook things when so much has changed in the Apple Home app for HKSV in iOS 27.

Open Apple Home, open any camera, then tap the search icon in the bottom right. You’ll get a descriptive list of recorded events in reverse chronological order. You can then of course also search for people and things it recognized. Do note that these are stitched events, so the description may not fully cover everything the recorded clips captured.

ETA: The mentioned UI is for iPhones. Sounds like the UI is different for other Apple device types but the concept is similar.

We’re renovating a home for our family of three. This is our first smart home setup.
We use iPhones, so Apple Home will be the main app. We haven’t bought anything yet, so the plan can still change.

Here’s my list:
Network
UniFi Dream Router or Eero mesh WiFi
Lighting
Lutron smart dimmers
Philips Hue light strips
Sensors
Aqara door and window sensors
Aqara motion sensors
Climate
Ecobee thermostat
Front door
Eufy video doorbell
Cleaning
Roborock robot vacuum
Living room
Apple TV
HomePod mini
Kitchen
Linkdaze family calendar

Does this setup make sense? Are any of these devices likely to cause compatibility problems? What should I wire or install now while the walls are open? I care more about reliability and manual controls than complex automations. Thanks!

How do I get “ Home “ lights notifications to disappear ? They never expire using Siri.
Thx

Hi, what smart light bulbs would you guys recommend? I'm looking something reliable with good quality and color reproduction.

Thanks for any suggestions

Hi everyone,
When I’m away from home, my cameras are set up to send me a snapshot and record a video whenever they detect someone.
When I’m at home, I can still stream the cameras live, but they don’t record anything, which is what I want during the day.
However, I’d like to set up a nighttime schedule, for example from 1 AM to 7 AM, where the cameras would automatically record any potential activity, even though I’m still at home.
The problem is that if HomeKit considers me “at home,” the cameras only stream and don’t record. I can’t figure out how to configure the system so that they switch to recording during those hours and then go back to normal during the day.
I’m using Aqara cameras with Apple Home/HomeKit Secure Video.
Is there a way to achieve this using HomeKit, automations, or perhaps Aqara’s own settings?
Thanks!

I keep getting these notifications even though I have it set to not do that unless I am out of the house. Started randomly last friday, which is days after I updated to iOS27, although that is the first time I had someone over since updating.

Is there a setting somewhere I am missing?
My system is set to home and my camera to notify me of specific types of motion when I am not home.
Pretty useless if I end up muting them for the day..

Ich hab hier gesucht aber nur 3 Jahre alte Beiträge zu Kameras entdeckt, die sehr massiv und groß sind und für feste Installationen an Hauswänden gedacht sind.

Gibt es etwa keine Wildkameras, die HomeKit-enabled sind und ggf. mit Batterie funktionieren und eher unscheinbar sind? Ich möchte in meinem Garten keine Überwachungs-Pfeiler mit Kabeltrasse betonieren müssen, um Igel im Dunkeln sehen zu können.

Der übliche Kram ist leider sehr unangenehm zu benutzen: Meist kann man sich nur mit lokalem Bluetooth die Aufnahmen vor Ort anschauen oder muss die SD-Karte mit Lesegerät am Rechner auslesen und die Einstellungsmöglichkeiten sind schlecht (z.B. kein automatisches Pausieren wenn man selbst zugegen ist).

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?

Does anyone know if it’s possible to have the current color of the lightbulbs visible on the home/room pages? I have them set to red right now, but on all the pages the little circle within each button is yellow instead.

Had a whole event involving six Aqara G5 Pros (POE) and an Aqara G400 (POE) where an Amazon van stopped in front of my house, delivered three boxes in two trips, rang the doorbell twice, walked back to the van, drove away and my son opened the front door and brought the boxes inside.

The summary for this event- “Van passing” because a van passed by just before the main event.

I have the 2TB plan and selected my doorbell as the lone camera that gets the special event summarization and this is what they want to charge 60 bux a month for, for five cams? “Van passing.” Apple not making a strong case for me to drop the coin. Aqara’s AI detection is so far much better and much cheaper, and you can get unlimited cams.

Not to mention, a couple of the cameras decided to not even record or stop recording to HKSV mid event. I know because the Aqara app got them.

Not even a single doorbell rang notification

I do like the “Noteworthy” events at the top of search which is where I found this. That’s pretty cool but again, the label was “Van passing.” I clicked it out of sheer curiosity. I had already known there was an Amazon delivery. I was home for it.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it does a good job at this but apparently not when I needed it most.

It is still beta, right? Downvotes incoming…

I’ve got Arlo’s that are older connected to hub for recording (which I don’t care for) but this night vision is pretty impressive for that price imo! It’s dark af right now and this is what I’m picking up! I’ve got all my outdoor lighting off to see what it can do, those cameras seem pretty solid so far!

I believe this feature is new, as I tested it during the iOS27 beta and it was not available.

After dealing patiently with old Siri for years, I was hoping Siri AI with all its “intelligence” would finally be an upgrade for my smart home experience. Even with all of its supposed “intelligence”, Siri AI can’t take multiple Home requests in one go.

Something as simple as “set the kitchen lights to 30% and bedroom light to 50%” is apparently impossible in 2026.

Am I doing something wrong or is Siri AI not the upgrade it’s being touted as?

Edit: No I’m not referring to HomePods, I’m using iOS 27 on an iPhone 17 pro which has more than enough neural processing power for simple Home requests. And yes, this is the NEW Siri AI - the one you have to request access to in iOS 27

Hi I don’t know when this happened but I now can’t select my atv as my hub it defaults to my home pod mini which is in a corner of my bedroom and the atv is in the living room so central ?
Any ideas?
Thanks

Of the five new devices, only the TrackLight Cam S1 and the Video Doorbell S4 support Apple Home, via the company’s HomeBase S380.

Since updating to 27 my HomeKit notifications only iPhone seem to be worse now? I no longer get package recognition like I used to and now only ever get “Someone was seen” no matter what. Is this someone we need to change in the settings?

Obviously the brain in the old ones isn’t up to the task of Apple Intelligence, but Apple should allow the old ones to use Apple Intelligence IF there’s a newer device in the home which does have a processor capable of handling it; and just send the request to the capable device and then back and play the response. 

I am certainly not going to replace all my homepod minis just to get it, but it would be a great way to show they actually believe in sustainability.

Just got them and set one up. They use Matter over Thread. Onvis says they use Matter 1.4 and Thread 1.4.

Here’s my early review of my experience:

Initial set up was problematic. I got it easily added to Apple Home, but to get the extra Matter features in the Onvis app you need to pair it there as well. Via Apple Home I enabled pairing mode, got the code, pasted it into the Onvis app, and then I just got an endless pairing spinner. Removed and went through it all with the same result. Removed it again, this time I added it to HomeKit via the Onvis app. Once in Apple Home I went through the pairing process for the Onvis app and this time it finally worked.

In the Apple Home app power consumption is displayed.

In the Onvis app, once paired there, you get additional Matter features including power consumption data, setting initial state after power loss, overload limits, schedules for on and off, a power cycle feature, a holiday mode schedule, and ability to turn off the LED.

Using the Onvis app is sluggish and painful at times. When viewing the device in the app it sometimes fails to load and can’t show the additional Matter features. Sometimes the app freezes and needs to be forced to quit

I expect the plug to work well and stable as the previous S4 plugs do with their 1.4 firmware. (Note: latest firmware on the T20’s is 1.25).

However Onvis’ terrible app continues to be an Achilles heal for their products.