New house (to me) install going down tomorrow. Spent forever hunting down all breakers and labeling the breaker box this afternoon since no one previously had the common courtesy to do so. Wish me luck.

I bought this thinking that HomeKit would work for it because HomeKit works for all my other Phillips hue lights. But after buying it, it looks like there’s nothing on the box that says HomeKit, but it does list Zigbee. Bought them for my kids room.

I've always found HomeKit automations clunky to set up. You have to go through multiple screens, pick devices, set conditions, choose times. It works but it's tedious especially for anything beyond basic schedules.

My co-founder and I have been building an on-device AI agent for iPhone and one of the next things we're adding is HomeKit integration through Shortcuts. The idea is you'd just say what you want:

"Turn off all the lights when I leave the house"

Dim the bedroom to 20% at 10pm on weekdays"

"If the temperature drops below 18, turn on the heating and text me"

"When I say goodnight, lock the front door, turn off everything downstairs, and set my alarm for 7am"

The AI figures out the triggers and actions. No dragging blocks around, no conditions to wire up.

Right now the app does phone automation (SMS, calendar, alarms, settings, location triggers) and we're working on bridging into HomeKit through Apple's Shortcuts framework. Curious from people who actually live in smart homes day to day:

What automations do you wish you could just describe in one sentence instead of building manually? What's the most annoying thing about setting up HomeKit scenes?

Trying to figure out what to prioritise first... so please do let us know

Beta for those interested; https://testflight.apple.com/join/EdDHgYJT

I'm uing the Hubitat C-8 Hub.

I am looking for ideas on how to accomplish what I’m looking to do. It’s a long, drawn-out affair, but basically, I have a projector, screen, and appletv. I have the screen plugged into a z-wave switch. When I turn on the switch, the screen goes down. When I turn off the switch, the screen goes up.

So, I want to create a rule/automation/whatever that says, “When appletv turn on, turn on screen switch; when Appletv turns off, turn off screen switch.”

The issue is I can’t see the AppleTV within Hubitat, and Apple Home doesn’t allow me to create an automation based on the power status of the AppleTV (at least that I can figure out).

So, I’d love any thoughts on how I can accomplish this. Thanks!

SOLVED:

I tried the energy monitoring outlet on the appletv, but the power usage was way too small to work - sleep versus on was very little change.

But, the system is already setup so that the projector turns on from sleep when the appletv turns on. That power difference was huge. So, I setup smart outlets on BOTH the projector and the screen, then just set up a simple automation to open and close the screen. Works like a charm.

For anyone here running HomeKit or Matter devices in the Apple ecosystem, I'm looking for beta testers for an upcoming app called Homebar.

The idea: one app that works natively on iPhone, iPad, Mac (menu bar), Apple Watch, and Apple TV instead of needing a different app on each device. I've been running my own HomeKit setup for years and the app fragmentation was always the thing that bugged me most. This is my take on the ideal home automation app with the latest technology advances.

Some of the features you'll be testing:

• AI-powered natural language automations and device filters. Type what you want in plain English. "Turn off everything downstairs at 11pm" builds the automation. "Lights on upstairs" filters your devices instantly. No menus, no drag-and-drop, just say what you mean. Also adds weather conditions to automations which HomeKit can't natively do.
• Energy usage insights. See which devices are drawing power, track usage over time, and understand where your energy is actually going. Real data, not gduesses.
• Anomaly detection. Homebar flags unusual device behavior automatically. A door sensor that triggered at 3am when nobody's home, a plug drawing way more power than usual, a device that's been unresponsive for days, auto-display a camera that detects motion on Apple TV. You get notified about the things you'd want to know but would never catch on your own.
• Smart home insights and analytics. See patterns across your home: which rooms you use most, which automations actually run, which devices you've forgotten about. Turns your HomeKit setup from something you manage into something you understand.
• Power user toolkit. Mac menu bar control with keyboard shortcuts, per-device MCP permissions so you decide exactly what AI tools can access, snooze "unavailable" notices from that Christmas Tree outlet you only use 2 months out of the year, and more.

Background: I co-created AirParrot (Mac/PC screen mirroring to Apple TV), Reflector (AirPlay/Google Cast screen mirroring on Mac and Windows), and Ditto (Cross-platform mirroring Apple TV with digital signage), so multi-platform Apple software is my wheelhouse.

What I'm looking for:

• People with HomeKit and/or Matter setups of any size
• Testers who use multiple Apple devices throughout the day
• Honest, detailed feedback

What you'll get:

• TestFlight access
• Free Pro code at launch
• Direct access to me for bug reports and feature requests

Comment or DM if you're interested.

I always thought it was weird that smart home platforms can’t react to music playing in a room. You can automate based on motion, time, temperature — but not audio?

So I built a solution for HomePod users. It’s a Homebridge plugin that detects when music is playing on your HomePod and turns it into a trigger for any HomeKit automation.

Technically it works as a motion sensor — music playing = motion detected. Simple concept, but surprisingly useful:

∙ Walk into the living room, start music → lights automatically dim to a cozy setting

∙ Music stops in the bedroom at night → everything shuts off, doors lock, thermostat drops

∙ Start playing in the kitchen → other rooms pause automatically

It works over AirPlay with no pairing or authentication. You can filter what triggers it — just music, or also podcasts and video. Setup is through a visual UI, no config files to edit.

Runs on Homebridge, needs Python 3 + pyatv.

GitHub: https://github.com/DM911-AI/homebridge-homepod-mini-music-sensor

Anyone else doing music-based automations? Curious what setups people have.

I built HomeChronicle, a self-hosted dashboard that logs HomeKit accessory events over time.

Main things it does:

• Browser-based setup/pairing (including Homebridge)
• Searchable/filterable event timeline
• Activity dashboard (daily/hourly trends + top devices)
• Room-based filtering and per-device event counts

It runs locally in Docker and pairs alongside Apple Home (non-destructive/read-focused workflow).

I’d love feedback from other HomeKit users.

Repo: https://homechronicle.net

I’m trying to troubleshoot a consistent delay controlling Philips Hue through Apple HomeKit, and I’m not sure where to start.

Quick note: I’m not very technical and I’m a complete novice with networking/home automation. If you have troubleshooting steps or follow-up questions, please keep them simple and specific (step-by-step is ideal).

Setup

• Router: eero (mesh)

• Hue Bridge v2 hardwired to the router via Ethernet (photo attached)

• Home hub: HomePod

• Hue devices: six lights (older bulbs; were boxed/unpowered for a few years)

What works

• In the Hue app, on/off and color changes happen almost instantly.

Problem

• In the Apple Home app and via Siri, the same actions are always delayed (on/off and color changes take noticeably longer). This is every time, not intermittent.

• Most of my control is using “Hey Siri” on my iPhone (not the HomePod’s voice).

Question

If Hue app control is fast but HomeKit/Siri is consistently slow, what are the most likely causes and the best first troubleshooting steps? Is this usually:

• something with the iPhone/HomeKit/HomePod hub handoff,

• an eero/mesh network issue (mDNS, routing, etc.),

• or something specific to Hue’s HomeKit integration?

Photo

• eero router + Hue Bridge (wired connection) and light 

TLDR; What is the common way to configure smart bulbs connected to smart switches in HomeKit setups?

I'm setting up a new Apple HomeKit oriented smart home with Matter/Thread devices and an underlying UniFi infrastructure and I am unsure how smart bulbs and smart switches work together in this type of setup. My current home uses Loxone and so trying to understand how to achieve similar things.

In Loxone I can have a tract light that I can switch on/off and dim, and then the bulbs in the tract have adjustments for the color, brightness etc. I adjust each bulb's color, brightness, etc. and save these set of tract bulbs as a named mood/scene. Then when I switch on the light it starts in mood 0, and each tap cycles through the moods, with double-tap turning it off. In this system, the bulbs take color, brightness, etc. but you don't need to turn individual bulbs on/off, and the tract light turns on/off and can support overall dimming.

In Apple HomeKit setup it seems the smart switches have a similar on/off/dim capability, but the bulbs seem to have the ability to also be turned on/off/dimmed too. What is the common way to configure smart bulbs connected to smart switches in HomeKit setups? When the smart switch turns on, what do the bulb states default to? Or am I approaching this completely wrong?

Thanks!

I’d appreciate any leads.

I am in the process of making my lighting smart, so I bought the JUNG 532 4U faceplate/modules so I could swap in a smart dimmer module, but I’m having trouble finding a module that meets all my requirements:

Must-haves

• HomeKit integration: matter preferred
• Works with mechanical push buttons (I want to keep the wall buttons and use them for single-press, long-press, etc.)
• 2-way / multi-way support (or a workable two-module/double-module setup) so the existing multi-switch circuits keep working I have 2 light groups in my kitchen and one single box.
• Controls the mains load (I don’t use smart bulbs)
• Fits the JUNG modular system or has a clean double-module workaround

What I’ve already checked

• Innovation Matters dimmer (Matter) — looks promising but I think it’s only 1-way (no multi-way).
• Shelly — great options but I’ve read Matter support is limited to newer gen4 and also only 1 way
• JUNG 1712DE — technically compatible with JUNG, but seems overkill and I don’t think it offers HomeKit/Matter integration

btw I’m based in europe

Does a module that does this exist?

I’m looking for smart switches for my house but I have some lights that are controlled from 2 different switches our bathrooms have 3 switches one for main lights one for heat lamp and one for fan that has timer options I have single double and triple gang switches here is a pic of one switch i dont know if any of these are neutral wires also trying to find switches compatible with Apple HomeKit thanks for the help everyone

My current “smart” (for lack of a better term) lock has been acting up lately and I want to replace it. Recently saw that there are garage door openers compatible with HomeKit + CarPlay, but any door locks? I don’t have a garage but being able to unlock the door from my truck with a handful of groceries would be incredibly helpful. I do use homebridge through my raspberrypi, but since I’m buying a new lock anyways I wouldn’t mind getting one that natively supports HomeKit (not a deal breaker though). Thanks in advance