Search: homekit

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Latest Amazon TVs Will Support AirPlay 2, HomeKit

Charlotte Henry ·

Amazon released its Omni and 4-Series Fire TVs on Wednesday. It also announced that the devices will soon support AirPlay 2 and HomeKit, according to The Verge.

Amazon has already rolled out AirPlay 2 and HomeKit to some of its “Fire TV Edition” TVs from Toshiba and Insignia. Curiously, these features have yet to come to the company’s standalone Fire TV streaming devices — including the just-released Fire TV Stick 4K Max. I’m not sure if that’s an intentional choice, but it’s a bit odd that Amazon is ready to announce support on day one for its brand-new TVs with nothing to share about AirPlay 2 coming to its cheaper devices. (Roku supports AirPlay 2 on both its players and Roku TVs.)

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Arlo Update Fixes Apple HomeKit Issue

Charlotte Henry ·

Arlo confirmed to AppleInsider that it has fixed a bug that prevented users adding its smart home devices to Apple Homekit. The fix came was included in the latest version of its iOS app – version 3.5.1

That version, which has a release date of August 6, is currently available from the App Store. “Arlo appreciates the patience of our loyal customers, and is excited to share that an iOS app release with a remedy to the HomeKit issue is now available,” the company said. Earlier in August, AppleInsider began receiving reports from users about issues adding new Arlo devices to HomeKit. The problem appeared to affect HomeKit tokens, which caused users to get stuck on the “Requesting HomeKit info” screen when adding devices to the Apple smart home platform.

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Adding Car to HomeKit for In-App Controls and Automation

Charlotte Henry ·

Self-confessed “home automation enthusiast” Siobhán Ellis integrated an electric car into her Apple HomeKit setup. In a blogpost (spotted by MacRumors) she explained what she did and how she did it.

After I initially wrote this blog post, I wondered if there was a HomeBridge integration into the Jaguar InControl API. InControl enables a number of things, such as remotely seeing if the car is unlocked, how much it’s charged and if it is charging. It also enables pre-conditioning, which is the warming up of the car before you travel somewhere so the batteries work at peak efficiency. As it happens, there is a plugin, called Jlr Incontrol. Installation was easy, although I must say it came up with a few warnings.

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Using Open Source Software to Extend Apple’s HomeKit

Andrew Orr ·

Simon Bisson wrote a cool story for ZDNet. It involves using an open source tool called Homebridge that can be used to integrate smart home devices that don’t natively support HomeKit.

The plugin ecosystem is where Homebridge really excels. By having its own defined APIs, it’s possible for anyone with access to developer documentation to build a simple translation layer that links devices to HomeKit and to Home (and to Siri). Most of the plugins are on GitHub, so if you want additional features or support for alternative hardware, you can fork existing code and start to add your own features.