Andrew_OSU

Supp0rtLinux said:

macwhiz said:

Fix HomeKit on the Apple Watch. When you open the Home app, it seems responsive for a second or so... and then becomes unresponsive for several seconds while it loads device statuses, etc. When this happens, sometimes it queues up taps, sometimes it doesn't. And using Siri to turn devices on and off from the Apple Watch has gotten painfully laggy in recent iterations of watchOS.

HomeKit is always fast for me. You may want to upgrade your AppleWatch. I have the series 3 with LTE and its immediate for all HomeKit requests.

macwhiz said:

Fix HomeKit on the Apple Watch. When you open the Home app, it seems responsive for a second or so... and then becomes unresponsive for several seconds while it loads device statuses, etc. When this happens, sometimes it queues up taps, sometimes it doesn't. And using Siri to turn devices on and off from the Apple Watch has gotten painfully laggy in recent iterations of watchOS.

Add real programming to HomeKit. Right now you can define a trigger... but what you can't do is use simple logic: If it's after sunset and this motion sensor is activated...  The obvious way to do this is to (a) bring HomeKit to macOS and (b) integrate it with Automator. This one thing is what keeps HomeKit from being true home automation: You can't truly link things together because you can't use boolean logic (this AND that, this OR that...)

tonkinite said:

Until Bluetooth can form mesh networks like some of the other protocols, I can’t see HomeKit making a lot of headway against Z-Wave or Zigbee devices. SmartThings, Wink, Vera all support these, but not Apple. Surely it can’t cost much to add transceivers for these to TV, HomePod, etc (which are defacto hubs, folks).

I have several dozen devices connected, most of which are Z-Wave. Based on my shopping, it looks like Z-Wave will be the dominant standard going forward, unless or until something better comes along.

dkhaley said:

Here are some of my additional suggestions:

1) Fix Geofencing for secure devices
I understand why HomeKit doesn't allow you to unlock a door when you come into range. But I think I should be able to have it lock my doors, turn on the alarm etc, if I leave home.

2) Better Lighting Transitions
Right now I can turn lights on or off at certain times. What I want it to be able to do is tell a light to fade in from its current setting to its new setting over 15 minutes. Similar functionality would also work with sound, such as fading in a playlist when my morning alarm sounds.

3) Use the alarm as a trigger
If I wake up at the same time, I can set a scene to start at the time. However, it would be useful to be able to program in "turn on the switch to my coffee maker 5 minutes before I wake up"

4) Make it easier to group devices
One of my light fixtures has four Hue bulbs. I was able to group these in Homekit using the iDevices app. Why can't I do this easily in the Home app?

5) Choose which devices trigger the "first person arrives", "last person leaves" automations.
I have a school-age child that doesn't take his phone to school. I want the kid to be able to control things at home. However, I find that when I leave home, the "last person leaves" automation doesn't trigger, because the child's phone is still there.

6) Randomness
I like turning on my lights at sunset or 8:00pm. However, it would be even better (when I'm way) if I could have home kit do something at 7:00 +/- 10 minutes.

clarker99 said:

dlord said:

I would love to see new features but I would also like to see some fixes: I would like to see Apple add the ability to establish a specific device as the Master of your HomeKit configuration. I find that once you have a very large setup with multiple users synchronizing the accessories, scenes, and schedules either takes forever or revert. For example, if I add an accessory with my iPad my iPhone may take days or sometimes never see the new accessory. Additional, it has taken days for the new accessories to show up on my wife's devices. My wife's current Home App is not up to date with what I see. On some rare occasions the newly added accessory disappears and does not return. Secondly, also add the ability to explicitly specify which Apple TV is the primary for remote sharing and bluetooth. I have multiple Apple TVs that are scattered throughout my house. I recently installed the Yale bluetooth lock at my front door. I have found that HomeKit will randomly select the Apple TV to act as a bluetooth bridge. On occasion, HomeKit will select an Apple TV that is more than 30ft from my front door or between several walls and my lock becomes unreachable. The only way to fix the problem it to go to the selected Apple TV and disconnect from HomeKit and reconnect, then go to the Apple TV that I wish to use as a bluetooth extender, disconnect and reconnect. After a few minutes HomeKit uses that newly select Apple TV for remote access and bluetooth communications. I find that I have to go through this exercise every few days or after I have to restarted my wifi. Lastly, there is something that does not work properly with HomeKit setups with more than 150+ devices. I think some of my sync problems may also be related to the number of devices. After, I got past 100 I noticed it takes longer and longer to add new accessories, scenes, and schedules. I notices that it affects the timeliness of the notifications and randomly causes devices to become unresponsive. The devices are not truly unresponsive and if I press and hold the device (force touch) it is like it reaches out and updates the status immediately or if I swipe between rooms it updates the status of unresponsive devices. It behave as thought the database/config file that hold the HomeKit setting has reached some sort of size limit and only the most recent update make it into the settings. If I remove devices and scale back the number of registered accessories the behavior returns to normal. If they fixed these things I would be so so happy.

I have never had the problem of HomeKit accessories not showing up across my devices. Shows up within seconds. 

You have 150+ accessories? That sounds both impressive and expensive