You use your iPhone every day — to stay in touch with people, stay organised, help manage your health and fitness, and even replace your wallet. With HomeKit, now you can also use your iOS device to connect the products you use in your home — so you can privately and securely control them and make them work together.
HomeKit works through the apps that control each of your home products. It sits backstage, enabling the apps to interconnect. So you can make your home products work together and control them in more ways, straight from your device. And privacy is built in. HomeKit data is always encrypted, so the only people who know when you’re setting your lights to turn off or your thermostat up are the ones in your household.
iDevices
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HomeKit lets you create scenes to connect and control appliance settings in different combinations. For example, you can create a scene named “Leaving home” that turns off the lights, locks your doors and lowers the thermostat — all with one command.
Open the blinds and let the morning light in.
Turn on the kettle so the water is ready for your tea.
Turn up the thermostat before you get out of bed.
Open the blinds and let the morning light in. Turn on the kettle so the water is ready for your tea. Turn up the thermostat before you get out of bed.
Turn on the lights so you don’t come home to a dark house.
Unlock the front door without having to hunt for a key.
Set the thermostat so it’s already comfortable when you walk in the door.
Turn on the lights so you don’t come home to a dark house. Unlock the front door without having to hunt for a key. Set the thermostat so it’s already comfortable when you walk in the door.
Turn off all the lights except the one at your bedside.
Close the blinds to block out light.
Lock all the doors before you get into bed.
Turn off all the lights except at your bedside. Close the blinds to block out light. Lock all the doors before you get into bed.
Siri knows the types of HomeKit-enabled products you have in your home as well as their status.* So you can ask Siri to turn an appliance on or off, or set one of your scenes. With Apple TV, you don’t even have to be home — for example, you can ask Siri to set the “Arriving at Skye” scene while you’re driving. When you get there, the house will be bright and warm, waiting for you to settle in.
“Turn on the upstairs lights”
“Good night”
“Set the Brighton flat to 22 degrees”
“Lock the front door”
“Turn on the printer in the office”
“Film night”
You can set up your home products to turn on or off automatically based on other triggers. So without you even giving commands, your home is always at the ready.
Set your lights to turn on as soon as you park outside the house.
Have your bathroom heater turn on at 6:00 am, before you get out of bed.
Use a motion sensor in the doorway to turn your kitchen lights on when you walk in.
You can also set up products to trigger each other based on an additional condition. For example, set your bathroom heater to turn on at 6:00 am — but only when you’re home. Or use a motion sensor to turn your kitchen lights on when you walk in — but only after sunset.
When you shop for devices, you’ll see clear labels that make it easy to know which products work with HomeKit, and each home product app takes you through the steps to connect your products to each other.
Apps for HomeKit
Over 50 brands worldwide are committed to providing products that work with HomeKit, and the number of available accessories is growing every day. Each of these products is reviewed and approved by Apple to ensure your security when you use it.
Shop the Apple site for HomeKit-enabled products
Look for this symbol in shops and online.