Level & Rocky Mountain Hardware, VOCOlinc gone & more on HomeKit Insider

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On the new episode of HomeKit Insider, Level Lock has partnered with Rocky Mountain door hardware for new HomeKit-enabled locks, new Logitech firmware coming soon, VOCOlinc is missing in action, and home project updates.

HomeKit Insider


News was light in the world of HomeKit this past week, with the biggest being Level Lock partnering with the premium accessory maker Rocky Mountain Hardware. Level's incredible smart functionality will now be coming to several different door locks in the company's lineup.

We also had several people writing in asking about VOCOlinc. It appears as though the company's website has gone offline, many products are out of stock, and support tickets have gone unanswered. AppleInsider has reached out to the company for comment and thus far we've yet to get a response.

Fortunately, even if VOCOlinc has gone under, HomeKit allows its products to continue to work uninterrupted.

We also got a list of several new enhancements arriving in the new firmware for the Logitech Circle View doorbell cam which may fix ongoing connectivity and overheating issues, though beta testers haven't confirmed this to be the case quite yet.

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    xstarscreamxxstarscreamx Posts: 2member
    Vocolinc actually restocked all of their products on Amazon recently and the Vocolinc store on Amazon is up and running?  They had several items showing out of stock with no ETA when they would be back (i.e. lightbulbs, light strips, etc) but now they are all available again.  Maybe they are exclusively just using  Amazon for their sales and store?
  • Reply 2 of 5
    AppleZuluAppleZulu Posts: 2,008member
    With regard to Stephen's question posed in the podcast about what sort of ethernet to install in his home while it's under construction...

    That's not the right question, or at least it's not the right first question. The first question should be what's the best way to make whole house wiring for tech stuff easily accessible in the future? I would've thought that, as testers of new tech gear that is constantly coming out, it would be pretty obvious that no matter how cutting edge the specs are for the wiring you install right now, within ten years (probably five) it will be at best borderline obsolete. As it turns out, building custom cabinetry and wiring for A/V and computer gear is almost always a losing proposition. 

    So, while the walls are still open, you might want to consider installing conduits made of something like amply-sized PVC piping inside your walls that will make it easy to go into your attic or crawl space or to regularly positioned, aesthetically pleasing access boxes, where you can easily pull all-new wiring throughout the house in a few years. You'll want end-points in every room, and multiple end-points in rooms that are likely to serve as media, office or music rooms for you or a future buyer of the house. The end-point faceplates should also be easily and entirely replaceable, because what is right now an ethernet jack might one day be a data port for an astromech droid. Talk with your contractor and local building inspectors to make sure said conduits won't interfere with insulation, structural integrity or fire safety of the building. 

    Once you've designed and installed easy-to-access conduits for data/media wiring, then you can start asking which ethernet spec to put inside it that will serve current needs and delay the inevitable replacement of it for as long as possible.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    igorskyigorsky Posts: 755member
    Vocolinc actually restocked all of their products on Amazon recently and the Vocolinc store on Amazon is up and running?  They had several items showing out of stock with no ETA when they would be back (i.e. lightbulbs, light strips, etc) but now they are all available again.  Maybe they are exclusively just using  Amazon for their sales and store?
    I just checked and I don't see many products.  Also none of them are being sold by Vocolinc.
    edited August 2021
  • Reply 4 of 5
    xstarscreamxxstarscreamx Posts: 2member
    igorsky said:
    Vocolinc actually restocked all of their products on Amazon recently and the Vocolinc store on Amazon is up and running?  They had several items showing out of stock with no ETA when they would be back (i.e. lightbulbs, light strips, etc) but now they are all available again.  Maybe they are exclusively just using  Amazon for their sales and store?
    I just checked and I don't see many products.  Also none of them are being sold by Vocolinc.
    I do not know if you are on Amazon US store.  But Vocolinc has a store on Amazon.  So yes it is being sold by them since it is their store.  I would screenshot, but I do not want my account on here.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    davidmalcolmdavidmalcolm Posts: 384member
    I'm hoping Vocolinc isn't out of business. I have one of their smart air purifiers and while I do have one set of replacement filters, my hope is that I'd be able to continue to use it for many years to come. I'm very allergic to perfume, and that thing is fantastic both because it does a good job, but also because it has an air quality sensor that I can check to quickly figure out if I'm feeling lousy because of air quality or because of something else. (You might think it would be obvious but air quality issues often stop really registering to the brain even while you're stuck in the smell.)
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