Nobody sees how dystopian it is to have a home—your most personal, private space—filled with microphones, cameras, watches, & earphones that detect & catalog your every move (and health, fitness, vulnerabilities, home entry points, etc.) via voice, facial, & apparently body detection? Thinking there is no back door or hackable entry point for the FBI, Kremlin, China, or nefarious non-governmental group?
Corporate databases & systems are hacked literally every day, but our home networks are immune? China has hooks into our commercial telephony networks but not our home networks? You believe this?
All this so we can figure out if there’s enough hot water to take a shower?
Are you all crazy? Or just blinded by tech naïveté?
Let's see how this iteration of the 'Digital Hub' strategy will play out. If it's anything like 2001, it won't go far. Open source solutions are far ahead, and people seem to accept the setup trouble and lack of polish for something that, well, works.
Home automation makes me gag. Would be happy if Apple could improve AppleTV 4K functionality with decent hardware and a smoother UI experience for music & TV, support for gaming and AI that is actually helpful. It’s at the stage where any old smart TV with Android works way better and more reliably, so Apple definitely need to upp their game or they’ll soon lose me. Bought the wife and I AirPods Pro 2’s last year and we occasionally watch TV or a movie together after the kids are in bed. The sound is great (much better than our paired HomePods) and simultaneous listening on AirPods is one of Apple TV 4k’s cooler features, but man have I had some major hassles keeping a glitchy 4K working…
Couldn’t disagree more. Integrated smart TV interfaces suck hard, slow and annoying to use. Not to mention all the video fingerprinting surveillance of viewing habits. ATV OTOH is super fast, a joy to use, and I know they aren’t spying on me and selling that data.
I have zero technical glitches or issues on all of my ATVs. Maybe you have networking issues.
(only issue is some crummy third party apps with poor UI, such as Amazon, YouYube, and Max. They refuse to use the excellent built in native video player.)
Agreed. I have been following the progress of this field since the X10 days. I did not then and do not now see any reason to have my refrigerator, and window blinds, and door locks connected to the internet.
You seem unclear on what home automation is, then. I have thread-powered locks on Apple Home and it is absolutely not required to connect them to the internet. Thread is a local wireless protocol.
I use Home app with cameras, lights, etc but it is clear that Apple is still behind with some crucial features - notably, the ability to display logs of those devices that were triggered and what triggered them.
I don’t see that as a missing Apple Home feature whatsoever, as most people don’t care. Never even had the thought to want to do forensic log review. I’m sure if that was important hardware vendor apps could implement should customers actually want it.
This is what I call junk tech. When I was around ten, me and a couple of mates found a discarded hot water heater. We figured we could fill up the heater with diesel, set it on a bonfire underneath and aim into space. You can imagine how well that went. But then we were kids.
Apple is running out of ideas post the genius visionary Steve Jobs. So let's tailor clothes with sensors; let's fill up the home with tech: flush the toilet, set the coffee to start, control the fridge, the lights, the telly, the stereo, the doorbell and on an on. This is not visionary thinking, this is lateral thinking. Any bonehead can see that.
The last thing that I would want is some tech company invading my home with their tech. Home is home not a site to infest with gadgetry.
What's next? That's just the thing. There are only so many talented people like Steve Jobs. When they go their vision only extends so far and then their legacy lives on until it dies with them. The Mac, iPhone, iPad. That's the magic trio. All else is just natural progression: earbuds, watches etc. etc.
But where is the tech to make you sit up and go wow this really changes the landscape. If you look back over the last decades and are asked to point to life altering experiences you point to Google Search - which Apple is utilising; EVs - thanks to Elon Musk, the iPhone, AI (jury is still out on that one), that about it.
Engineering wizardry is not technological groundbreaking otherwise every company with a couple of hundred talented engineers would be breaking new ground every year or so.
Has it happened yet? No, I didn't think so.
Whole buncha wrong. Jobs was not the inventor of the products you’re crediting to him. He in fact was the first to say it’s a collaborative effort and give credit to the teams behind these products. He’s a part of it, but they weren’t his brain-childs.
Home automation isn’t junk tech. It’s what enables me to have my house run itself for the most part, and also let me monitor it from across the country if I want to. As someone who travels a lot this is great.
Man this topic stirs so much negativity from people who don’t even use this stuff. Wild!
Nobody sees how dystopian it is to have a home—your most personal, private space—filled with microphones, cameras, watches, & earphones that detect & catalog your every move (and health, fitness, vulnerabilities, home entry points, etc.) via voice, facial, & apparently body detection? Thinking there is no back door or hackable entry point for the FBI, Kremlin, China, or nefarious non-governmental group?
Corporate databases & systems are hacked literally every day, but our home networks are immune? China has hooks into our commercial telephony networks but not our home networks? You believe this?
All this so we can figure out if there’s enough hot water to take a shower?
Are you all crazy? Or just blinded by tech naïveté?
Silly argument based on ignorance and false equivalences.
Most home automation operates within your local network and hub. There is no “database” to be hacked.
There aren’t any backdoors built into Apple’s encryption.
China is a nefarious state actor but they don’t have access to the hardware in my home.
Home automation is just electronic junk for electronics sake.
My house was built in 1936 and is as modern as any house. Switches and grounded outlets and everything. Some of it is original, others upgraded over the years.
Home automation junk won’t last 5 years the way Apple Supports it. I’m not wasting my time or money on anything that isn’t portable or super simple.
You’d think I was a boomer, but I guess I’m sick buying AirPods every 3 years because of battery death and Apple Watches for the same reason.
I still have an old Apple Express as a remote printer but I can’t talk to it anymore thanks to Apple deprecating the configuration tools. It still works, though. Somehow.
I'll believe it when I see it. I have been trying to get Home to work for years. Even now, I have two Meross plugs for outside Christmas lights. They work perfectly with the Meross app, but nothing with Home. I see them on Home, and can set up to turn on and off automatically. but, nothing. Wont work.
Same with many Amazon plugs.
It just doesnt work for me...
Sounds like a problem with your hardware. Been running that exact use case (including with Meross outdoor plugs), for years. It just works. Lights on a schedule, and I’ve never even used the Meross app, HomeKit only. Same for my lights, I rarely touch the vendor app.
I use Home app with cameras, lights, etc but it is clear that Apple is still behind with some crucial features - notably, the ability to display logs of those devices that were triggered and what triggered them.
I don’t see that as a missing Apple Home feature whatsoever, as most people don’t care. Never even had the thought to want to do forensic log review. I’m sure if that was important hardware vendor apps could implement should customers actually want it.
Look in the home app for activity history. Shows you activity related to security devices like doors.
Current HomePod mini is known for getting bricked (as was the original HomePod). My last mini stopped working (restart, connect to Mac,... no connection for days) earlier this week and there is no repair program. Hard to recommend any HomePod given that the quality issues are all over the net with some users reporting to have seen several units die. I only used this one as a HomeKit hub. Apple will need to address these quality issues.
Current HomePod mini is known for getting bricked (as was the original HomePod). My last mini stopped working (restart, connect to Mac,... no connection for days) earlier this week and there is no repair program. Hard to recommend any HomePod given that the quality issues are all over the net with some users reporting to have seen several units die. I only used this one as a HomeKit hub. Apple will need to address these quality issues.
TimApple to staff: look guys, if we can’t even make a simple speaker hubby thing that doesn’t freeze up then I’m killing the car program pronto. I mean come on, Elon is launching StarLink satellites almost daily, landing the rockets and dominates the EV biz, and you’re telling me our speakers freeze up??
It would be wise for Apple to really do something 'complete' with its smart home efforts which have historically fallen well short of competitors.
I never fully understood the decision to wind down the AirPort products division right at a time when mesh networks were taking off and IoT began to be a thing.
It never really dealt with the communication side of things either (networking: wired and wireless, QoS, PLC, IoT: passive and active etc) while it very much looks like it's different OSes were siloed and hindering the kind of interaction required to be part of a true smart home which begins with instant, stable, fast and low latency connectivity.
It never developed its own wireless chips or IoT chipset solution but at least may be looking into it now if the rumours prove correct
It brought HomeKit to its devices and basically left it to tread water.
Thread/Matter has given Apple hope for a new direction and greater exposure to devices but even Thread/Matter was a slow burner in comparison with what competitors were (and still are putting out).
There absolutely needs to be a control panel or various control interfaces within the home that remain in the home (phones can serve the same function but leave the home so something needs to be home centric.
Obviously cameras play a major role too.
Another must is FTTR and preferably agreements with property developers to get the 'smarts' built into the home during the construction phase.
Then there is the mobility side of things with cars being an extension of the home.
It goes without saying that AI will be pushed as an integral part of smart whole house systems too.
Yes, time will tell and it would be a good strategic move for Apple to move a few steps up the ladder.
Agreed - Our house came with a Z-wave system that we use for basic home automation tasks. When we bought a cabin I decided to use HomeKit since we had an appleTV that we could use as a hub. For basic stuff it works but I've found it significantly lacking in the programming/automation side. It really does seem like Apple only made a half-hearted attempt, and the relative lack of devices is appalling.
My automation system is simple but mixed. I started with X10 and progressed to Insteon. They almost went under a couple years ago, but some former employees bought the company and IP and restarted it. Their hardware uses radio waves and power line signal for some redundancy. It works well and the Indigo automation software I use is very capable, but not super user friendly. I also have a few of Homekit switches for lamps and fans etc. and they work okay, but sometimes go offline for mysterious reasons. I plan to get a new M4 Mini next year that will let me access some features in my SecuritySpy DVR software to help it integrate with Apple Home.
It's really all a mish mash because I have yet to see anything that seems well flreshed out and 'complete' - as avon b7 said. Something needs my attention pretty muchevery week. These sytems require too much user input on a regular basis. My wife often tells me that if I die, one day she won't even be able to watch TV because some stupid tech element will fail and she won't know what to do. I agree with her and badly want to get a system in place that just works and doesn't shit the bed regularly. It would be nice if Apple offered in-home design, service and maitnenance for Apple Home systems. There are a lot of people who would really like service like that, instead of the current lot of installer based companies that do a bad job of after-the-sale service on home automation installs.
Let's see how this iteration of the 'Digital Hub' strategy will play out. If it's anything like 2001, it won't go far. Open source solutions are far ahead, and people seem to accept the setup trouble and lack of polish for something that, well, works.
I use Home Assistant (on a headless Raspberry Pi 4 plugged into my switch) and it is definitely much more feature rich and functionally useful than Apple Home. It allows access to just about everything in my connected house, cameras, Echos, smart TVs, Hue lights, Apple devices, sensors, even down to exposing printer toner cartridge or ink levels. Very impressive but sorely needs a UX designer to try to bring it all together in a user friendly way. As an engineer, I love it, which isn’t saying much for less tech savvy users.
Comments
Corporate databases & systems are hacked literally every day, but our home networks are immune? China has hooks into our commercial telephony networks but not our home networks? You believe this?
All this so we can figure out if there’s enough hot water to take a shower?
Are you all crazy? Or just blinded by tech naïveté?
I have zero technical glitches or issues on all of my ATVs. Maybe you have networking issues.
(only issue is some crummy third party apps with poor UI, such as Amazon, YouYube, and Max. They refuse to use the excellent built in native video player.)
You seem unclear on what home automation is, then. I have thread-powered locks on Apple Home and it is absolutely not required to connect them to the internet. Thread is a local wireless protocol.
Your loss. Home automation is great.
I don’t see that as a missing Apple Home feature whatsoever, as most people don’t care. Never even had the thought to want to do forensic log review. I’m sure if that was important hardware vendor apps could implement should customers actually want it.
Home automation isn’t junk tech. It’s what enables me to have my house run itself for the most part, and also let me monitor it from across the country if I want to. As someone who travels a lot this is great.
Man this topic stirs so much negativity from people who don’t even use this stuff. Wild!
Most home automation operates within your local network and hub. There is no “database” to be hacked.
There aren’t any backdoors built into Apple’s encryption.
China is a nefarious state actor but they don’t have access to the hardware in my home.
Yet another crank take. Kudos!