If you're running iOS 8, you control your HomeKit accessories with Siri; outside your home, Siri talks to your Apple TV.
Your third-generation Apple TV may be getting a bit long in the tooth hardware-wise, but it stil has some skin in the new software features game: Its 7.0 update included support for extending communication with your HomeKit accessories outside your local Wi-Fi network. This is primarily a feature aimed at users still on iOS 8; iOS 9 has this support built-in, no Apple TV required. Here's everything you need to know.
So what does the Apple TV do for HomeKit, anyway?
By default, HomeKit in iOS 8 is limited to your personal Wi-Fi network: All handshaking and Siri commanding happens within those boundaries. But your Apple TV — in combination with your Apple ID — gives your iPhone or iPad a way to securely talk to your HomeKit devices even when you're outside the house.
iOS 8? What about iOS 9 users?
Starting with Apple's iOS 9 update, your iPhone can securely chat with your HomeKit bridges and accessories even while out of the house. It can do so because of the new HomeKit Accessory Protocol (HAP), which uses secure networking over iCloud to talk to your connected HomeKit accessories. HAP doesn't work with prior versions of Apple's mobile operating system; as such, if you're still using iOS 8, you'll still need to use and set up an Apple TV for controlling your house outside your local Wi-Fi network.
How does the Apple TV connect to HomeKit in iOS 8?
It's an under-the-hood mixture of iCloud Keychain and HomeKit frameworks. Say you're on LTE: You press the Home button to pull up Siri and give the command "Turn on the lights." Without an Apple TV or HAP support, that command goes nowhere — Siri replies with "I can't do that."
With an Apple TV on your home Wi-Fi network, however, that command travels over your cellular network back to your set top box, where it handshakes with your Apple ID. "This is the owner of this HomeKit network," Apple TV then says to your installed HomeKit bridge. "Here's a command from them." The HomeKit bridge thusly executes the command, and the lights in your home pop on.

Now, if you're doing this on LTE sitting in front of your lights, you're going to see a slight delay between giving Siri the command and the command actually happening: This is because of that extra handshake that happens between the Apple TV and the HomeKit bridge; normally, when you're on Wi-Fi, your commands go directly to the bridge, then to your compatible accessories.
But I'm going to hazard a guess that 90 percent of commands given outside your Wi-Fi network won't be to turn on a light right in front of you; they're going to be to unlock your door, turn up the thermostat, or turn on the lights from your car. By the time you get to your door, the command should have been executed with time to spare.
There is one other limitation to the Apple TV's relay: It currently only supports commands from the owner of the HomeKit home. This is because the Apple TV can only be logged in to one iCloud/Apple ID at a time.
For instance, say you created a HomeKit network under john@icloud.com and also added sarah@icloud.com as an additional user. You're also logged in as john@icloud.com on your Apple TV. Sarah can use Siri to activate HomeKit when she's on your Wi-Fi network, but once she leaves the house, she'll be unable to issue commands. Because your Apple TV is only logged in to one account, it can only authenticate commands from that one account.
So it's just an extender? Why can't my Apple TV be a HomeKit bridge and talk to my non-HomeKit accessories like my Nest?
A HomeKit extender does not a HomeKit bridge make: Just because your Apple TV can talk to HomeKit doesn't mean it can link your Hue bulbs and Nest thermostat into that framework.
First of all, HomeKit hubs have to be built with certain bluetooth and Wi-Fi specifications, and the 2012 Apple TV doesn't have the hardware for such a venture. On top of that, for the box to be a HomeKit bridge, it would need to develop secure handshakes and APIs for every third-party accessory out there — no easy feat.
I'm not saying that there's never going to be a future Apple TV that also acts as a HomeKit bridge, but such a thing is nigh-impossible for your current Apple TV — and the new fourth-generation Apple TV has made no mention of having HomeKit bridge support. I'm afraid we're stuck with too many bridges for the time being.
Here's how to set up your Apple TV with HomeKit
If you're still on iOS 8 and have HomeKit-enabled accessories in your house, here's how you go about enabling your Apple TV for HomeKit.
- Make sure you've set up rooms and zones for your accessories with Siri.
- Turn on your Apple TV.
- Open the Settings app.

- Click on iCloud.
- If you're currently logged into iCloud, log out and log back in; otherwise, log in with your iCloud ID. If you're already logged in with iTunes, it may prompt you to log in with the same ID.

Give it a few minutes; after that, you should be able to use HomeKit commands with Siri even when you're not on your local Wi-Fi network.
If you can't get it to work after ten minutes or so, try restarting your Apple TV and repeating the above steps. It took me a couple of logouts/logins before my Apple TV successfully started routing Siri HomeKit commands.
Any other questions?
Anything else about Apple TV and HomeKit you're confused about? Holler in the comments.

Reader comments
Everything you need to know about Apple TV and HomeKit
You mentioned the limitation of how multiple users may not be able to access Homekit accessories due to the Apple TV being signed into one account, however this article seems to suggest it's possible to grant additional accounts access: http://m.imore.com/how-add-multiple-users-your-homekit-accessories. Am I missing a detail? I'm confused.
You can have multiple users access your accessories within your Wi-Fi network, but once you go outside (away from home, or on LTE) it's limited to the primary user.
I have 3 Apple TVs in my house. They are logged-in to the iCloud using my Apple ID. Can I log-in to iCloud using my wife's Apple ID on one of them so she can also remotely access HomeKit? The "Family" option would also be a good solution for allowing multiple users remote access to HomeKit. Thanks.
Yup, I think that should work! Let me know if you're running into trouble and I can query Apple about it.
Is there a possibility of the next TV could be a bridge device? I could be possible if it gets the rumored specification, of the iPad Air 2. It would be a selling feature if it was capable of being a bridge device. Maybe this would make people upgrade to the new TV just for this feature.
It's possible, but like I said up above, would require a ton of work from Apple so that third-party manufacturers could talk to it.
"A HomeKit extender does not a HomeKit bridge make: Just because your Apple TV can talk to HomeKit doesn't mean it can link your Hue bulbs and Nest thermostat into that framework."
Hi Ren,
Then i'm note sure how to interpret the fact that the Apple TV can talk directly to the Ecobee, Elgato and the iHome devices without (that is seems) any kind of hub from those company... For Instron and Lutron I would agree with you though. Please correct me if I'm wrong... But if that was the case, I would have thaught the Apple would have listed the "required" hub in their list at https://support.apple.com/fr-fr/HT204903 All of this to say that if a company decide to create Hue light bulb "made for Homekit" in the future, those new devices should be managable by the Home app, thru the Apple TV.... Thanks in advance! ☺️
So, Ecobee, Elgato, and iHome have the necessary bridge chips built into their individual hardware. Luton and Insteon built separate external hub devices. Yup, you're absolutely right in that if Phillips decides to build those chips into their new Hue bulbs, those would be compatible without a hub... It's just the old stuff that needs a compatible bridge to link it to HomeKit.
Hope that helps!
It sure does Ren :)
Thx
Apple TV can talk to those devices because they are on the wifi network. Home automation hubs typically use radio frequency (RFID not Bluetooth or wifi) to talk to the multitude of devices. Things like door locks, light switches, simple on/off devices. Apple TV doesn't have a RF transmitter. You could have some control with the wifi devices but not everything. Insteon's hub might be able to let you have remote control from another location but it would be just as easy to log directly into the hub instead of the Apple TV.
HomeKit requires a secure Wi-Fi connection in lieu of RF to protect your home's security — it's why manufacturers have to come out with a compatible bridge or replace the innards of their devices to make them HomeKit-compatible. Apple TV works not only because it's on the Wi-Fi network, but iCloud Keychain can authenticate you to your secured devices through it.
Then it's doomed to fail.
At least for those that have the latest version of Apple TV (slightly changed in 2013 (3rd gen. REV. A), where the A5 chip in it is actually single core instead of one of the 2 cores turned off, and a few modifications for lower power consumption...apparently something else was modified): Considering you can airplay direct to AppleTV without being on the same wifi network, it is possible apple will change things with a future software/firmware update, where it could possibly work in a similar manner to AirDrop, as far as connection/communication goes.
So, I don't agree with the "First of all, HomeKit hubs have to be built with certain bluetooth and Wi-Fi specifications, and I suspect that the 2012 Apple TV may not have the hardware for such a venture.", as, it does utilize BT 4.0 and wifi direct to airplay direct.
Does that mean the Apple TV would have to stay on? So you would swicth the setting on Apple TV to never sleep.
I purchased the ecobee3 thermostat. I love this little thing! The only problem I have had is trying to use Homekit/Siri outside of my network... I have tried logging out of iCloud and restarting the ATV to no avail… (I did find out that the ecobee3 does NOT support 5 GHz wi-Fi... Only 2.4 GHz...) My question is this: Does the Apple TV need to be connected via WiFi to the same network as the ecobee? Mine is connected via ethernet and I'm wondering if that is my problem?
Have you got it to work? I have same problem. Except for me, I have two Apple TVs, 1 wifi and 1 ethernet. Maybe I should turn off the ethernet Apple TV and see what happens...
Have you figured out a solution? I have a similar problem. Except for me, I have two Apple TVs, one on ethernet and one on wifi. Maybe I should turn off the ethernet one and see what happens..
Mine's the next post in the thread, but I'm experiencing the same issue. I can use Siri to control my HomeKit stuff on my LAN, but cannot access it via cellular when I'm away from home. I also have two Apple TVs, one connected via Ethernet, one via WiFi. I spoke to an engineer at INSTEON, and he said that shouldn't matter. Both are accessing the same HomeKit area in your iCloud account, so whichever gets there first should work. I too plan to switch from Nest thermostats to the new Ecobee3 in the future, but in this case, it absolutely must work away from home, as my Nest does now. So, I'm following comment on this thread carefully. Thanks for posting.
I have SmartHome's new HubPro (HomeKit enabled) that uses the Insteon+ app on my iPhone 6. The software has improved over the summer so that I can now control stuff throughout my home using Siri over my LAN. This works, mostly. I do occasionally have to manually click on an on/off switch within the app to wake up the Siri functionality, but generally, it's pretty cool, if more of a technology demonstration than useful for me. You see, I leave my iPhone in a charging station when I'm around the house, and now rely on my Apple Watch for routine stuff (messages, news alerts, email, weather, health stuff, and the like). So, until they offer an Apple Watch app/extension to their Insteon+ app, it's not very useful. I'm not going to carry my iPhone around the house just to occasionally invoke Siri.
That said, it would be cool if I could use Siri when I'm out and about to turn something I've forgotten on/off at home. I have a DropCam Pro and a Withings Home camera, so I could confirm whether my Siri command worked. So far, it hasn't. My Insteon+ account uses my iCloud account name, and my Apple TV and iPhone are both logged into my iCloud account. I've configured my Privacy settings to allow the Insteon+ app to access my HomeKit stuff, and I've logged out/back in to iCloud on my Apple TV after setting up the iPhone Insteon+ app. None of this has helped. I've posted to SmartHome's forums, and even iMore's, but so far no mere mortal has admitted to actually remotely accessing their Insteon HubPro over cellular using the Siri HomeKit interface.
Hi. Does anyone know whether appletv requires NAT-PMP for this? I'm behind a corporate firewall and then tend not to support it...
Not sure and possibly yes, but I haven't seen anywhere in various troubleshooting guides anyone mentioning this as a potential issue. For other services (Remote Login, etc) Apple does specify fairly clearly that you may need to enable port-forwarding, but I haven't seen this for HomeKit (probably since it's meant to just work and may be a little frustrating if the average person was asked to configure port forwarding). Technically, it shouldn't be necessary, if the AppleTV maintains a connection to some Apple servers for HomeKit notifications (just like it does for Software Updates, etc.) I have read somewhere that people only got it to work after disabling the AppleTV sleep mode, but I doubt this is a real requirement.
I installed the new Hue 2.0 bridge a few days ago and installed the Ecobee 3 (HomeKit version) and set everything up and it works on the lan but not remotely. It worked initially and I have reset home kit config, used a different iCloud account on the phone and apple tv but it won't work remotely. I have reached out to AppleCare support and they were not able to come up with much at this point. Anyone else seeing an issue where they just can't get it to work remotely?
I'd like to hear from anyone getting reliable remote access to their HomeKit devices. So far, the best I've heard is that someone once got it to work once, briefly. So, while Siri control via HomeKit over one's home WiFi LAN appears to mostly work, as it does for me with my Insteon Hub Pro, and with watchOS 2 now using my Apple Watch, as well, I've seen/heard of no one in any forums who's been able to remotely access these HomeKit devices. Surely, if this is supposed to work remotely, someone would be sharing their success?
Since updating to El Capitan and getting the most recent ecobee app for my iPhone, everything has worked flawlessly both locally and remotely
Great news, Macsterguy! I've been considering the new ecobee3 (HomeKit enabled) to replace my Nest thermostats, which work perfectly, both locally and remotely with my iPhone, but unfortunately are owned by Google now, so I don't trust them to misuse my use of Nest's technology down the road.
So, what's the HomeKit experience like with the ecobee3? Do you just use Siri to control your thermostats now, both locally and remotely, or do you have to click on an iPhone ecobee3 app to control them in each situation, both locally and over cellular? That's how I control my Nests now, by using a Nest app., so no Siri integration. What was the setup procedure to activate the HomeKit interface, and did you have to use your iCloud credentials, or just log into the ecobee3 app with a new user account that used your iCloud login name, but with an ecobee3 app-specific password (so ecobee wouldn't know your iCloud password, but the user login had to match your iCloud user name)?
Hey Macsterguy, in another post I read that they got remote access to work when they used their @icloud account, vice their actual Apple ID account. Mine point to the same email address, but I wonder if this might be my issue?
Since changing my login account involves trashing my many hours of work setting up my Insteon Hub Pro data (essentially resetting my HomeKit area in iCloud), before going through that again, I thought I'd ask you if you are using an @icloud account for your HomeKit devices? Mine is an @mac.com address. Another user changed from their @me.com address to their new @icloud account and that worked for them.
I think am using a .mac account... I will check when I get home. I wonder if ecobee3 just got it right and maybe others have work to do? The ecobee3 is the only device I have. Have you tried resetting homekit in settings/HomeKit privacy?
Yes, I just confirmed I am using a .mac account...
The irritating part of all this is that I switched to my original iCloud account on both my phone and Apple TV last night so there are no other devices to cause an issue on the account. I then setup home kit all over again. As a side note, it would be nice if Hue would update their bridge firmware to allow a home kit reset without a factory reset of the bridge. This means 3 hours of work to repair, lights, dimmers and apply scenes and schedules. All that and home kit still does not work remotely.
I don't have a television set, and I don't want one. Is it possible to use an AppleTV in some kind of headless configuration just for its HomeKit capabilities? I suspect, sadly, that the answer is no, as I don't think you can configure the AppleTV via the Remote app, but I'm not certain this is the case.
I can't seem to get any of my Elgato Room sensors to show me data away from home. I can only connect via bluetooth. I've tired everything Elgato, Apple, and you all say about setting up HomeKit via Apple TV. All my software is the latest on Apple TV and iOS. Am I missing something?
...I'm starting to just wish they'd use a bridge.
While one guy has responded that his Hue lights actually work with HomeKit remotely, using both Siri and manually using its app, I haven't seen anyone else confirming HomeKit works remotely. I've been trying for months to figure out what I'm doing wrong with my Insteon Hub Pro and its Insteon+ app to get this to work remotely, and nothing has worked for me. So, I think there must be some black magic involved. I can use Siri around the house, and the app itself works on my LAN, but never remotely over cellular or from an external WiFi connection. The good folks at Insteon have been unable to help, and have actually stopped responding to my queries for help. I hope that's just temporary while they figure out what's actually happening. But, the technology is clearly a work in progress.
Well that's a bummer. I too am under the impression that black magic must be involved, because I've tried everything that Apple and Elgato suggest to no avail. I really hope I can get the remote stuff working soon. I really want to get that Schlage lock, but it is useless if I can't let people in when I'm not home.
...So what spells are everyone using? :)
I have Elgato weather and elgato doors - both work fine outside home via ATV.
Dave, if I am that guy it is my ecobee3 thermostat that is working flawlessly. I don't have the lights but my home is very comfortable and I'm standing in the dark :-)
Yeah, Macsterguy, you're the one! What I don't understand is how Hue, DropCam, Nest, Withings, et al, can all get their devices to access the local LAN so well, and Apple's HomeKit can't. Of course, this may just be Insteon, but there are an awful lot of happy satisfied HomeKit users who haven't spoken up. Thanks for contributing. Your device's success gives me hope.
Thanks, Macsterguy, for confirming you're still using your @mac.com account. I thought for a moment someone had identified a quick fix for this issue by using @icloud.com instead.
My remote HomeKit actually stopped working this afternoon. I logged out of iCloud on the AppleTV and log back in and that fixed it… I wonder if part of all of this is the upcoming new AppleTV And a subsequent update for the old Apple TV?
We can hope. I got excited for a bit when it was suggested that using an @icloud.com account linked to our Apple ID account might fix this issue, but your HomeKit devices responding remotely with a non-icloud.com account dashed that brief hope.
My local Insteon+ app devices go up and down (get grayed out) occasionally during the day, but always eventually come back online for Siri use around the house on my LAN. For this Insteon Hub Pro product, I don't know if that is due to an authentication issue with Insteon's servers, a waking up issue with the hardware, a network chip hardware issue in the hub, or perhaps an Apple encryption issue delaying access to the HomeKit area in my iCloud account. I've filed a support request with Insteon, and suggested a possible swap out of my hub, but that would be useless if the issue is software/firmware that could be updated. So, I'll pursue that option with them only after they complete their analysis. I'm really hoping the hardware is fine, since resetting HomeKit and reentering all my switches in their app is very tedious, taking several hours for me.
Remote Siri still worked today with Ecobee3... Also, Ecobee3 updated the app with geo-fencing which seems to work well too. New AppleTV's are on the way!
Hi, I have an ecobee3 and the Apple TV 4 Gen.
When I'm home all scenes show up along with GeoFence. All Siri commands work. I am signed on to iCloud account. Both the tv and phone have the same iCloud account.
When I leave home all Siri commands work.
The problem is that the GeoFence disapears as well as the scenes. The only thing there is Home thermostat.
Remember I said all Sori commands work, so is it still a cloud thing?
I'm desperately trying to get HomeKit Remote Access to work. I have a new Philips Hue 2.0 Bridge and an iPhone 6S with latest iOS 9.2.1 on it.. Everything works via HomeKit from my internal Wi-fi. But it doesn't once I turn Wi-fi off. The Home app says it failed to execute the action set.
I'm not using the Apple TV as in iOS9 it is supposed to work without it, directly. But I'm curious as to how this should work. For this to work my Hue Bridge would need to have an idea about my iCloud account. I would need to get that configured somewhere, don't I? How is the bridge otherwise supposed to know what commands to get from where?
On my iPhone, I'm logged in to iCloud and have everything going, and I flipped the switch for HomeKit Remote Access. But there must be something I have to configure on the Hue Bridge side of things? Whatever that is, I can't find it. Has anybody tried that?
The Hue HomeKit bridge should be connected to your home LAN, either via WiFi or hardwired to your Ethernet switch. When you use your iPhone to configure your Hue lights, it updates the Hue HomeKit area in your iCloud account. I have mine plugged in to my home's LAN. The Hue app on my iPhone connects to the Hue HomeKit bridge to control the lights at home. HomeKit gives you the ability to use Siri to control your lights.
Irrespective of the Siri functionality, you should be able to use your Hue app on your iPhone to control your Hue lights remotely. This has nothing to do with HomeKit. If you can't, then your Hue app is not configured correctly. I'd reset your Hue HomeKit bridge, re-add your Hue lights to its database, and follow the setup instructions to try again.
I originally had the non-HomeKit Hue bridge and had no problems controlling my lights over cellular from my iPhone remotely. When the new HomeKit-enabled Hue bridge came out, I simply swapped the old one out for the new one. There was a setup procedure that was supposed to transfer the settings from the old bridge to the new one, but it didn't work for me, so I had to manually setup the new bridge and re-add my Hue lights to its database. After doing that, I regained control of my Hue lights, with the added bonus of now having Siri control.
If this doesn't work, you may have to reset your HomeKit environment in Settings on your iPhone to start over from scratch. It's possible the HomeKit database in iCloud has gotten corrupted if you've added/deleted the devices too many times.
Hmm, doesn't seem like a stable solution if you had problems and now I have problems. I guess the only way to try is to completely reset my whole system and set up every bloody scene and group and light from scratch. What a pain.
As I have pretty much everything set up as you said. Hue HomeKit Bridge is connected via ethernet to my home's LAN. Hue app connects to the bridge, lights can be controlled.
When I'm not at home, I used Philips' service. You can log into your app and set timers and alarms and the app would write settings to Philips' servers and the Bridge would periodically get those settings and make the lights go on and off when you're outside your wi-fi network.
Controlling stuff with Siri works inside my wi-fi. But not outside, when I'm away. So I can control all lights from my Hue app, I can control them via Siri, too. I can control them via the Hue app and Philips servers when I'm away from home. But I cannot use HomeKit/Siri when away from home.
Seems all I can do is reset everything.
I agree that HomeKit Siri control is definitely going through growing pains. I had to rebuild my HomeKit environment multiple times last summer when it first came out. Then, again when I got my Hue lights added to my INSTEON switches stuff (Insteon Hub Pro). It's now working pretty well. I do have the Apple TV 4, which I assume is being used as a gateway for my home LAN. I never got HomeKit to work at all with my Apple TV 3 as a gateway. I know HomeKit is supposed to work without the Apple TV 4 gateway now, but I've never found that to work. So, you're definitely a test case for that.
Please post your trials and tribulations. It would be nice to know if HomeKit actually works without an Apple TV 4 as a gateway to iCloud's HomeKit environment.
The worst part of futzing around with HomeKit is that there's no way to back up your various device configurations. Whenever I had to reset HomeKit last fall to get things working again I had to re-add over 30 devices to my Insteon+ app on my iPhone, in addition to my Hue devices. I did create a few scenes, but didn't bother with anything sophisticated since I knew if I had to redo everything it would be a pain. Good luck.
I'm now talking to Apple Support. Let's see what they find. Also, I read here on this site that the vendor needs to support this new iOS 9 HAP (HomeKit Access Protocol). If not, you still need an Apple TV. Since Philips hasn't been quick to implement anything, maybe this is not supported by Philips yet. But I guess this is now a question for Philips support rather than Apple.
The Apple Support just got back to me and says this whole HAP thing is still in development, apparently? The supporter, who was very nice, didn't even know what HomeKit was. Had to read up on it first. But then asked a colleague, who said this remote access was still in development. Well, I don't know. Anyway. Let's see what Philips says to this.
One thing that is still not clear to me: let's forget about iOS 8 with AppleTV and talk only iOS9, with a iHome ISP5 smartswitch for example. The ISP5 has a builtin HAP, so this device can directly be accessed without a hub. My question is: when I'm on LTE with my iOS 9 iPhone and give it a HomeKit command to turn on/off, does my command go talk to an iHome server in the cloud, than this server relays the command to the iSP5 device? Or does my iPhone somehow is able to talk directly to it, and if so, how does my HomeKit command sent gets thru my home router without the Apple TV? I hope I'm clear enough and that it makes sense ;)
I haven't found information anywhere explaining exactly how Apple implements HomeKit commands to HomeKit devices. That said, I have discovered with my INSTEON Hub Pro (HomeKit enabled) that commands sent to it from my iPhone app appear to go directly to the hub when I'm on my home LAN. Before the Apple TV 4 I couldn't reach the Hub Pro over cellular at all. After installing the Apple TV 4, I can reach it without issue. This suggests to me that the iPhone sends a HomeKit Siri command to my iCloud account directly over the Internet from my LAN that bounces back to the Hub Pro immediately after authentication for action, no Apple TV required. But, it appears that when on cellular this Siri command, after getting to my iCloud HomeKit area for authentication, fails without the Apple TV 4 to serve as the gateway to my LAN from my cellular connection. That's a bit awkward to explain, this is the path I think that's happening.
LAN: iPhone Siri command to iCloud for interpretation to iCloud HomeKit database for authentication to home LAN to HomeKit device for execution
Cellular: iPhone Siri command to iCloud for interpretation to iCloud HomeKit database for authentication to Apple TV 4 for home LAN access to HomeKit device for execution. So, without the Apple TV 4 serving as a gateway, no access from cellular.
I hope that helps with your diagnostics in figuring out your situation.
It sure does! :)
LAN: I agree.
Cellular: Indeed, I just confirmed that without an Apple TV, iPhone commands sent thru 3G/LTE to HomeKit devices won't work. You need an AppleTV for remote control (3G/LTE) of your HomeKit devices (that would then connect either directly using native HAP on the device like iSP5, or thru a HUB with HAP on it, like Phillips Hue HomeKit Hub) That's great, because if communication were possible without an AppleTV it would have needed another point of entry into your house...
So... HomeKit requires an AppleTV for remote access.
This also implies that all information about your HomeKit devices remain in iCloud, including the XXX-XX-XXX "unique" identifier of you device. So when we do the initial pairing of a device, the identifier is saved only in your own iCloud and nowhere else (thus attached with you AppleID)... I'm telling that because I was surprised by how short this number was, and being only numerical in nature, it would have allowed only 100M differents codes (that looks like a lot, but world wide it doesn't)
Hello iMore people. I am having iOS 10 on my iPhone 6S Plus and iPad Pro "Mini". I also have Hue by philips in the house. Can you please help me out how to enable Siri controls in homeKit and make my TV my hub for homeKit? Thank you very much for your help.
I am running the iOS 10 beta with four Apple TV 4s and three Apple TVs 3. They are all hardwired. I have the Lutron smart hub, the devices socket and elgato EVE whether.
The Eve devices (temp and humidity seem to come and go as far as being connected. Do the Apple TVs relay the bluetooth connection to other Apple TVs? When I open the Home App on IOS and press the arrow button in the upper left all seven Apple TVs show up, but only one shows connected. I made the iPad running IOS 10 beta a hub then rechecked that option only the iPad was connected and all the Apple TVs showed disconnected. To get the Elgato Eve to work do I need to make the closet AppleTV to it the connected Apple TV? If so how do I do it? On the main screen of the Home App it states 6 home hubs not responding. 2 accessories not responding. I assume there is a major upgrade to the Apple TV to happen when IOS 10 ships. Thanks for any help and explanations.
I don't have your extensive hardware setup, so I can't really help you much, but I can share that it appears HomeKit needs only one Apple TV (version 4 is the only model that ever worked for me) to serve as gateway out of your house. The other Apple TVs should be able to do whatever you've set them up to do, but will have nothing to do with HomeKit functionality. My Eve outside thermometer connects to my gateway Apple TV over Bluetooth, and, yes, is close by (maybe 10 feet through the wall to my fence). When you set it up, just be sure it's in range of your Apple TV. Since your gateway Apple TV is presumably on the same network as your other Apple TVs, I'd guess that it doesn't matter that your Eve is not Bluetooth connected directly to your gateway Apple TV for remote access, but only you can test that. I have older Apple TV version 3s on my network, and they play no part with HomeKit access. You asked how to determine which Apple TV is your gateway. I can't help with that, except to suggest you could simply turn them all off, then back on one at a time to see when remote access starts working again.
In a related heads up, my HomeKit Siri control worked successfully for many months this year, then mysteriously stopped about three weeks ago. I can still use Siri to access my Eve thermometer, and to also invoke scenes (groups of switches changing state with one command), but I can no longer use Siri to turn individual switches on/off. When I try, Siri returns the "Sorry, I can't do that" error. It's very odd. I can still use the Insteon+ app on my iPhone 6 to manually turn individual lights on/off, both locally on my LAN and remotely over LTE cellular, but Siri no longer works for me to control individual switches. I've tried rebooting my Insteon Pro Hub, to no effect, and also tried simply changing the Siri voice command for a switch in the Insteon+ app, guessing that the voice command was somehow damaged in HomeKit on Apple's server, but that also didn't help. I have over 30 Insteon switches registered in the Insteon+ app, so resetting HomeKit and restarting from scratch is not appealing, especially since I can easily control my Insteon switches manually from my Apple Watch via the third party Home app. Apple is coming out with their own HomeKit Home app in September, so I'll wait until then to try it before starting over. If Apple's app won't work with my current Insteon Hub Pro configuration, I'll plan then to schedule the several hours it will take to rebuild HomeKit from scratch.
Dave, A complete different question. I notice you reference Insteon several times. So you must have the Insteon Pro hub built for HomeKit? I have several tasks my Lutron Hub is not se up to do, like a driveway sensor, open and close contacts for garage door control, etc. I saw several bad reviews of the Insteon hub for HomeKit. What is your opinion? thanks
I've been using Insteon switches for years, controlling them with my Indigo application on my iMac. They actually work quite well, although they do tend to fail more frequently than I'd like (one or two switches a year out of ~30 in service).
After Apple came out with HomeKit and I got an Apple Watch, I decided to give SmartHome's Insteon Hub Pro (HomeKit enabled) a try. I've been using it for over a year now, and had many growing pains over the first six months. I have no idea whether the problems were on Apple's or SmartHome's side, but while local control over my LAN has always worked pretty well (except for Siri voice control failing for individual switch commands a few weeks ago) remote access over cellular was non-existent for me until I installed a new Apple TV version 4 on my network. The older version 3 Apple TVs are supposed to also work as remote gateways, but never did for me. So, for much of the last six months iPhone and Siri voice control of my Insteon switches registered with the Hub Pro worked pretty much flawlessly, which was really cool lying on the sofa and using Siri on my Apple Watch. Manual control using the iPhone Insteon+ app continues to work fine, as does using a third party app named Home, which gives my Apple Watch an interface to my HomeKit registered devices.
LiftMaster garage door openers offers a HomeKit module you mount in the garage near the opener, which you connect just as you do with your car's HomeLink hardware. Once installed, you can then use their iPhone app to control the door, both manually and via Siri. I can't confirm that today, but intend to give it a try when I move to our new home in about six months. Reviews for it have been good, so far, however.
So, back on point, the SmartHome Insteon+ app for the new HomeKit enabled Hub Pro worked fine for me up until about three weeks ago. Manual controls for individual Insteon switches continue to work through the Hub Pro using the Insteon+ app on my iPhone, and via the third party Home app on my Apple Watch. Siri voice commands continue to work for scenes on both, but Siri commands for individual switches are failing on both with the "Sorry, I can't do that" error. When Apple comes out with their Home HomeKit app next month, I'll probably Reset my HomeKit environment from scratch and try to use only the new Apple Home app at that point. The Indigo iMac application is a great computer controlled solution, and allows for massive, reliable management of many automation devices. As I said, I've used it for years, it's very reliable, and works with many vendor technologies. It does NOT support HomeKit, however, and never will, since they're pushing their own home automation solution. I'd like to discontinue using Indigo on my iMac, but won't until I can trust using the SmartHome Hub Pro and Insteon+ app, which I don't today. They're cool, and I love controlling things with my Watch, but strange quirks, like this new Siri failure for a particular category of HomeKit tasks, make it unreliable for me for now. It's more a technology demonstration effort I'm playing with, for now.
There is also one, very annoying Insteon+ app quirk, I've been experiencing over the past year which holds it back for me. When I invoke a switch or scene command, that action turns a particular switch either on or off, and records its state in that app. If I then turn the switch on/off manually, or use Indigo on my iMac to do that, then the Insteon+ app isn't aware of that switch state change. If I then use Siri, or the Insteon+ app to change its state, and it thinks the switch is already on/off, then nothing may happen, since the Insteon+ app won't send the command to the switch if it thinks it's already in the requested state. This could easily be solved if the Insteon+ app would simply accept that the user knows what he's requesting, and invoke the command state change, but it doesn't. So, it's easy for the Insteon+ app's switch state database to get out of sync. I've reported this behavior several times, but their customer service techs either don't understand the issue to pass it on to their engineers, or they don't care. In either case, this quirk is definitely holding me back in relying on their technology.
I need help unsteadying how devices are controlled from HomeKit. I several AppleTVs, version 3 but mostly version 4s, all hardwired ethernet, Lutron Smart hub with several lights and switches, Schlauge lock, Eve Weather and iDevices Socket. I have the IOS 10 Beta, ship #6 on an iPad. The Eve Weather is approximately 12 feet from one version 4 Apple TV and 15 feet from other. The Eve is configured via the iDevices app on the iPad as is the Socket. I do not have the iPad in Hub mode. The Eve temperature and humidity sensors seem to come and go, sometimes connecting after I start the IOS Home app, sometimes not. I have tried turning off different AppleTVs and the symptoms don't seem to change. Ive placed the iPad close to the Eve and no difference. Is there anyway to determine which dev the Eve is connected to, the IPad, or one of the Apple TVs? Secondly the iDevices Socket is connected via Wifi which has a super strong signal on that network. The iPad is usually on another wifi network bridged to the one that controls the Socket. When I turn the Socket off and on from the Home app, it seems to work perfectly. I have a scene created that turns the Socket Light and Night Light on at Sunset, off at Sunrise. The Sunset (on) scene seems to work well. Three days in a row I have noticed the Socket is still on after Sunrise and it appears not responding to the app when I start it. After I toggle the Home App button it responds. Where is the scene information stored for the iDevices socket, on the Socket, on an apple TV, iCloud, or the iPad? What tells the Socket to turn itself on and off at the programmed times? Not having any information on how HomeKit works and nearly zero tools to trouble shoot this is maddening. I hope IOS 10 and the TV O/S gain allot of functionality before release. Thanks for any help.
When you set up your Eve thermometer, you used the Eve app to establish a Bluetooth connection from your iPad to the Eve thermometer to connect it to your WiFi LAN. The app authenticated the device and recorded it with your HomeKit Home to your iCloud account. When you open the Eve app, it opens the connection to your thermometer over your WiFi LAN and pulls the data it's stored from the device into your app. The Eve thermometer must be mounted within WiFi range of the Apple TV being used as the gateway to your iCloud HomeKit account to perform this data pull. If you aren't on your LAN when you open the Eve app, it will use your cellular connection to connect to your HomeKit iCloud account, validate the request, and pass the request to your Apple TV gateway to gain access to your LAN, and then your Eve device to pull the data into the Eve app.
This is all conjecture on my part with my experience using the Eve app, both locally on my LAN, and when I'm out and about. I've checked my Apple TV gateway when pulling data from my Eve and there's no record of a Bluetooth connection to it, so it appears the Bluetooth connection was only for the initial setup.
Concerning where scenes are stored, I believe the device's master app is used to create and record the scene to my iCloud HomeKit account, where it is executed. I think this because I have a few Hue lights that I have scheduled to come on at particular times each day with specific colors. When I'm away with my iOS devices and remotely check via webcam, I can confirm that my schedules actually executed.
I don't use any iDevices, so I can't comment on those.
Dave,
I wasn't very clear. The Eve I have is the weather which is only BLE. When I have the iPad I used to set up the Eve Wether close (within five feet) to the Eve Wether it works great. When I move to another part of the house (more than 20 or 30 feet away) the connection to the Eve is very sketchy. I used one of the BLE apps and could see the UUIDs of the various BLE devices in the house but cannot correlate the Eve BLE UUID to any Apple TV. I heard back from the folks at iDevices and they tell me the Socket holds its own schedule information so I might be seeing different bugs. thanks for the help.
I understand. I guess I'm the one who isn't being clear. Yes, I clearly had to set up my Eve Weather using a Bluetooth connection to my iPhone 6, but after that Bluetooth is apparently no longer involved. The owner's manual doesn't say, but based on my actual usage pattern I believe the initial Bluetooth connection passed my iPhone's local WiFi LAN credentials to the Eve Weather. I believe that because my Apple TV's Settings section where connected Bluetooth devices are listed DOES NOT LIST THE EVE, even when data is being updated in my Eve app on my iPhone.
It's important for the Eve Weather device to be close to the Apple TV gateway for remote HomeKit access, and in my home it is, within about 10-12 feet just outside the wall of my living room behind the TV on my yard fence. In your case, the most direct way to figure out which Apple TV is acting as your gateway, may be to turn them all off, then back on one at a time with your iPad Eve app in cellular connectivity mode with WiFi off on your iPad. If remote access works, then you've identified the gateway Apple TV that's connected to the Eve Weather device. I don't know why the Eve needs to be near the Apple TV gateway if its using WiFi vice Bluetooth. I agree that makes no sense, but perhaps you have sketchy WiFi in the area where the Eve is mounted.
As I said, this is all conjecture on my part, since the manual implies that Eve Weather is always using its initial Bluetooth connection, but I never paired my Eve Weather with my Apple TV, only my iPhone for initial setup, so it MUST be using my WiFi LAN and Apple TV gateway to connect. I CAN get my Eve Weather to update when I'm sitting in a local coffee shop miles away and my iPhone is in cellular LTE mode. So, the remote connectivity path seems to be iPhone > cellular network > Internet > iCloud server HomeKit validation and passing request to my home's LAN's Apple TV gateway > Eve Weather, and back. It does usually take up to a minute for the update to start up and pass the Eve Weather data to my iPhone. The Eve app only updates when you open it, to save the device's battery. So, to be fair, I'm just guessing how it connects, but this theory seems to fit my experience.
Dave, The EVE weather uses BLE so it will not show up in the bluetooth area of the system panel. I found a couple of BLE dev apps for IOS that displays the UUID and measure signal and services on the BLE devices in the house but wow there are many. . The app identifies the Eve Weather, Schlauge lock as Sense, and each Apple TV but not in a manor I can tell which one is which without going thru the process of connecting each Apple TV to a mac via USB. I may try your suggestion to turn off all the AppleTVs and try one at a time to see what the response is. Wow what a way to run a network. I really hope the TV o/s fixes allot of these trouble shooting issues.
Thanks for your feedback. I'm groping in the dark here, just trying to sort things out logically based on their behavior. On a related issue, my Siri voice commands for my individual Insteon switches just started working again yesterday with my Apple Watch and iPhone, even though I had done nothing that could have caused this fix. That leads me to wonder if Apple or SmartHome had done something on their server end that created/resolved my issue, but never officially addressed it, since it "only affected a few users." In any case, my HomeKit devices are all responding normally again, both locally and remotely, with both Siri and manually with apps on my Watch and iPhone. So, all is back to normal again with my HomeKit stuff.
Currently have a rather robust Z-Wave network and all is fine; we do access the network remotely. Looking to augment (possibly switch over to) Apple Home Kit. Here are the three key factors.
1) We do not have a TV in the house. Is an Apple TV "required" for remote management? If so, can this be run headless like a MacMini ('cause there will be no TV screen).
2) Is Apple iCloud keychain "required" to operate. We do not use iCloud services, and a cloud based keychain would be the last cloud service used.
3) Few people operate the network remotely, using different profiles. This is not possible w/Home Kit? Just one remote user (or the single top level user)?