What’s the point of an indoor security camera? Monitor a pet? Keeping an eye out when you aren’t home? Maybe it’s to keep an eye out while you sleep? This camera does it all with enough detail to really make a difference if, heaven forbid, you ever need evidence of a break-in or have a pet emergency. Let’s dig into the Tapo TC73!

Tapo TC73: Price and availability

Tapo’s TC73 is widely available online and in brick-and-mortar stores. Right now, it can be purchased for $50 at places like Best Buy or Amazon.com. It was at its highest price in January 2024, at $70, but it seems to have price dips every couple of months or so, bringing it back to the $50 price point.

Its pricing aligns with one of our other favorite pan-and-tilt indoor security cameras, Aqara’s E1. The TC73 comes in only one color, white and black, with a red stripe toward the bottom.

Tapo TC73: Specs and features

I’ve been on a HomeKit Secure Video kick lately, looking at various cameras and accessories. The Tapo TC73 is one of the best cameras I’ve had the privilege of reviewing. The 2K QHD 4MP video is bright, with true colors and plenty of detail in darkness and daylight. That was even before I activated the HDR function, which increases dynamic range and enhances image quality in the shadows and highlights (areas that may be “blown out” due to light streaming through a window). If 2688x1520 (2K QHD) is too much for your available video bandwidth, you can scale the video down to 720P, saving space on the optional microSD card you can use to store videos locally. Another great option for keeping the bandwidth usable for your setup is the ability to switch video frame rates. You can choose from 15fps, 20fps, 25fps, and 30fps. 

With all of the high-resolution things activated, I noticed my stream going from around 160KB/s with no activity in front of the camera to around 350KB/s when I walked in front of it, looking at the app to note bandwidth changes. Those numbers are based on your motion settings before recording kicks in. 

The camera has more options than many of its competitors when it comes to motion and sound settings. You get the usual unspecified motion, then specific person/pet/vehicle options, but add to that “Line-Crossing Detection” and ‘Camera Tampering.” The former allows you to set a boundary in a location and get notified anytime a person or object crosses the boundary from either side. The latter sends you a notification when someone attempts to obstruct the camera and comes with sensitivity settings. You can also set the built-in alarm to go off when obstruction/tampering is identified.

As I said, there are sound detection options aplenty. A crying baby, glass breaking, dog(s) barking, and even cat meows will trigger alerts. I tested them all with YouTube sound effects, and they worked—well, except for the glass-breaking detection. But that could be based on the types of sound effects I’d found. And I love ya’ll, but I'm not breaking my windows to test that for you.

Speaking of breaking, if someone does break in at night, you have two options that may help you identify a thief. The TC73 features a starlight sensor, giving you better night visibility. It’s a larger sensor that captures more light, but the camera unit also comes with two IR lights to illuminate further what you’re trying to protect: red and blue. What’s the difference? Blue light is practically imperceptible, but the trade-off is the visible distance from the camera in the dark. If you’re only using the camera to watch a baby or pet, it’s ideal for that. The red light allows you to see further in the dark, up to 30 feet from the camera but is visible at night.

There’s native HKSV support built in here, so you can go and add it to Apple Home once you have everything configured the way you like in the Tapo app. Of course, that means lower resolution video and most of its features are unavailable in Apple’s app, including the built-in alarm, which does get exposed in Apple Home with some security cameras. With Tapo, besides the camera itself, you get the motion sensor exposed so that you can configure automations with it—something I’d like to have been able to do with the alarm.

Tapo TC73: Build and looks

I like the camera unit's looks, though some might find it large-ish for their use. At almost 5 inches tall by 3 inches wide, compared to others,† it isn’t inconspicuous. Recently, my younger brother visited the house and noticed it, telling me I had HAL9000 in my living room. That’s because the red status LED is pretty bright, but you can deactivate that if you want the unit to be more discreet.

The unit does feel substantial, though not heavy. It can be mounted upside down, with an inversion option in the Tapo App 3.0 menu. It is powered by a 12V DC adapter and connects to your network via 2.4GHz Wi-Fi only; there is no ethernet port.

I have noticed that the pan and tilt motor, and the AI which drives it are the most responsive I’ve used so far. The TC73 does a fantastic job of keeping up with people and pets moving in front of the camera’s lens.

Tapo TC73: Ease of use

Setting up the TC73 version two was quite simple. Download the Tapo app, create a login, tap the “+,” look for your device, and follow the prompts. Some of those will be voice prompts, letting you know you’re connected to the network or finished with setup. It took me roughly five minutes to get it up and running.

Because the app’s camera settings are laid out intuitively, using its extensive features is easy. You can access all of the camera’s settings from two screens: the main home screen for the TC73 and through the settings cog on that home screen. From the main screen, you get the pan and tilt function, privacy mode, alarm on/off, screenshotting, video recording, two-way communications, and playback and download of events. 

The other settings are behind a cog in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. I really like the way that the screen is organized. It uses cards and a menu list. The privacy options there are easy to use. I really like that they’ve included a privacy occlusion option and that the lens privacy option is in the app and can be activated via a physical button on the face of the camera body. Both options rotate the lens so it’s facing inside the camera body, giving physical privacy and not an app-based “blackout.”

Tapo TC73: Competition

Right now, the HKSV options you have are Aqara’s E1, and Camera Hub G3, as well as Eufy’s Indoor Cam E220 and Netatmo’s Smart Indoor Camera. 

Aqara’s E1 and Eufy’s E220 fall in line price-wise with the TC73, while the Netatmo offering is $190 and the Hub G3 is $88. Netamo’s Smart Indoor Camera is much more expensive than the TC73, but on its face, it appears to offer a similar feature set. I haven’t had my hands on that one yet though, so I can’t really compare it. Of the several cameras I have had the opportunity to review, Tapo’s has the best-looking video so far. That said, it doesn’t compare line-by-line to Aqara’s Camera Hub G3 as that one has a built-in Zigbee hub. The saving grace there is that the hub only connects to other Aqara products.

Right now, I would not recommend any other HKSV-supported pan and tilt camera over the TC73, but we’ll keep you updated as new devices come onto the market.

Tapo TC73: Should you buy it?

You should buy the Tapo TC73 if...

• You want detailed, high resolution video
• You want a great value
• You want a pan and tilt camera with HKSV support

You shouldn't buy the Tapo TC73 if...

• You want something more inconspicuous
• You want something with ethernet and USB-C out

Tapo TC73: Verdict

There is so much to cover with Tapo’s TC73! You can even watch your video directly through a PC with RTSP support, which also means that you can connect that video recording to a NAS. And we haven’t even gone into all of the products you can connect it to with TP-Link’s Kasa line of products or other Tapo products.  There’s a lot to offer here with the TC73’s high-quality night and day video, fluid pan and tilt that keeps with the action in front of the lens, smart privacy options, and an intuitively laid out Tapo App 3.0.

All of that combines to make Tapo’s TC73 easy to recommend for any shopper looking for an HKSV-supported pan and tilt camera that has plenty of compatible accessories to build your own smart home.

I’ve used a few doorbell cameras and thoroughly enjoyed my time with Aqara’s Smart Video Doorbell G4. Like many Aqara products, the G4 is chock full of features at a reasonable price and is compatible with HKSV, Google, and Alexa. There’s a lot on offer, so let’s get right to it! 

Aqara Video Doorbell G4: Price and availability

The Video Doorbell G4 is available only through Amazon for $120. At the time that I’m writing this there is an instant $22 discount coupon you can clip to apply to your purchase. It is currently available only in the U.S.

The G4 is priced below competitors like Arlo, Ring, or Nest, and doesn’t require a subscription for video recording, as the repeater features expandable storage for local recording. So you’ll save a few dollars compared to competing products. It’s important to note that for a few extra dollars, some competing products offer a vertically wider field of view, and slightly higher video resolution.

The G4 is available in either black, or shadow gray.

Aqara Video Doorbell G4: Specs and features

Aqara’s Video Doorbell G4 is powered by six AA batteries, which can be standard or rechargeable, but will last up to four months depending on how often activity is triggered. The G4 can also be wired to an AC/DC transformer like some of the best video doorbells available. The video is 1080p with a 162-degree field of view, but in my testing, I found that I’d like it to have a greater vertical field of view. I have it positioned pretty low on my door, as you'll see in the ultra-wide shot of my patio below. At that level, I can see as tall as a 6’ person’s head, but I can’t see the ground, so when packages are placed at my door, they’re out of view.

This is also due to the way my front porch is set up. It’s pretty narrow, so if you have a larger front porch, you’ll get more of the person in view as they approach the camera. You won’t likely see a package on the ground if it’s placed too close to your door though.

The G4 has some nifty AI and privacy features, like on-device facial recognition. Using the Aqara Home app, you can answer the doorbell using an “Uncle”, robot, or clown voice. Another handy privacy feature is the ability to mask areas of the image that may contain sensitive or unwanted views of neighbors' apartments or homes.

The repeater and doorbell units are both single-band 2.4GHz b/g/n only. While the doorbell can be powered by batteries or wired, with batteries used as a backup, the repeater must be connected to an external power supply via USB-C connection. The repeater also supports local storage up to 512GB via microSD card, which will allow you to set up 24/7 recording without needing an internet connection or the cloud. 

The repeater/chime is actually pretty full-featured. It features a loud 95dB speaker, which is great for the custom ringtones you can set up with it. You can use facial recognition to trigger those custom tones based on who’s at the door. It can also be set up with other automation to act as an alarm. Say, if you have other Aqara products like the window sensors and someone breaks into that window.

Aqara Video Doorbell G4:Build and looks

The G4 will likely evoke strong emotions from different users for its looks. While some folks like the svelte styling of the Arlo video doorbell, the Aqara G4 is larger and boxier like the Ring doorbell. Its doorbell button which lights up via LEDs, and its camera module are large and obvious, nothing discreet about it.

The G4 feels substantial and is IP-rated, though the instruction manual recommends placing it on a porch or other shaded area. It’s available in two colors, both dark tones only. If you’re in an apartment and can’t permanently alter your front door, or swap out the doorbell, this unit fits into one of my favorite temporary mounts, the Doorbell Boa. It’s a tight fit through the face of the Boa due to the large buttons on the face of the G4, but it works with minimal hassle.

Aqara Video Doorbell G4: Ease of use

Setting up the Video Doorbell G4 was a breeze. There are QR codes for downloading the Aqara Home app and for binding to HomeKit. The repeater is the part that connects to your home router, while the actual doorbell unit connects to it. So, you’ll set up the repeater first by adding it to the Aqara Home app, and following the prompts. 

I recommend setting everything up in Aqara Home first, and then connecting to Apple Home because there are a lot of features worth using that aren’t exposed to HomeKit. Once you configure features like image masking or custom ringtones, you can access and use the G4 through Apple’s Home app.

One aspect that doesn’t get enough attention is how easy it is to use most of these HKSV-supported cameras with your Apple Watch. The folks in Cupertino, CA, deserve their flowers for creating devices whose connectedness is pretty solid across hardware. I love being out and about and looking at the Home app on my Apple Watch to see who’s at the door. I can even control speaker volume and talk directly through the watch to anyone at the door.

Aqara Video Doorbell G4: Competition

There is some solid competition in the connected doorbell space, but Aqara’s offering stands out because of its value. You get a lot of features for less money than you would with competitors.

If you need a wider front porch view, you can look at the Nest doorbell cam. I’ve used it, and the view is excellent. As tight as the space is in front of my door, I can see an entire person and packages on the ground. The catch, though, is that it does not support HomeKit. Belkin’s Wemo brand has its compact Smart Doorbell Camera, which does support HomeKit, though I’ve not yet had the chance to test it out. It comes with a larger field of view and price tag, almost double the cost.

Aqara Video Doorbell G4: Should you buy it?

You should buy the Aqara Video Doorbell G4 if...

• You want a great doorbell at a fair price
• You want a battery-operated doorbell cam
• You want a lot of customization options

You shouldn't buy the Aqara Video Doorbell G4 if...

• You need a wider field of view
• You don’t want to deal with a two-piece unit

Aqara Video Doorbell G4: Verdict

Like I said earlier, I haven’t tested the Wemo offering yet, but of those I have tested, this is in the running for the best of show! The Aqara Video Doorbell G4 gives you a wealth of customizations, some very cool privacy features, and most importantly, solid video performance with timely notifications. If you’re all in on the HomeKit ecosystem, you may want to go all in on Aqara, and it’s video doorbell.

 Aqara’s Indoor Security Camera E1 is the little sibling to their excellent Camera Hub G3, aimed at those who don’t quite need all the bells and whistles or the higher price. But don’t let that fool you! The pan and tilt E1 is a robust indoor security camera with a great feature set and solid video performance in both daylight and nighttime scenarios. I have only one minor complaint. We’ll touch on that shortly. 

Aqara Camera E1: Price and availability

The Aqara Indoor Security Camera E1 is currently available only through Amazon.com for $59.99. Although price drops on this unit don’t happen often, it was $44.99 in December 2023. At the time of this writing, Amazon is offering a 10% off voucher in the US. 

Aqara Camera E1: Specs and features

Aqara’s Camera Hub G3 is one of their best indoor cameras, but if you’re invested in the Apple ecosystem, an Aqara hub may not be what you’re after. That’s where the Indoor Security Camera E1 comes in. For $50 less, you get much of what the G3 offers and some updated features in a smaller 4-inch tall package.

The E1 supports Wi-Fi 6, while the Camera Hub G3 is Wi-Fi 5. The E1 ups the G3’s robust privacy features by adding masking zones. You can add a black block to your video feed, so those areas are literally blacked out. That is in addition to an automated privacy mode, which allows you to set specific times when the camera will pan and point toward a wall or other privacy-focused area. The privacy options are a great feature because you will see everything pretty clearly with this 2K, f/2.0 camera, which looks great in good lighting and low-light conditions.

Connected to Apple HomeKit, the E1 has Secure Video support for storing incident videos in the cloud. However, you can also record locally because it has a microSD slot for up to 512GB of local video storage. This is especially useful if you turn on the camera’s 24-hour recording with timelapse mode. Accessing that slot is simple; just slide the camera's tilt lens up, revealing a microSD slot at the bottom of it.

One of the features I loved playing with is the 2-way telecom system. There's a speaker and microphone built into the E1 so you can use it as a telecom to talk to whoever's on the other side of the image. Your kids, your significant other, your pet, talk to everyone!

Aqara Camera E1: Build and looks

The Camera E1 feels well-built, even though it’s primarily plastic. It’s tiny, measuring 4 inches tall by 2.68 inches wide, so it should easily fit on a bookcase shelf or most other locations. It can even be mounted to the ceiling, and then you can go into the Aqara Home app and reorient the video.

The camera stays out of the way with an infrared backlight, which you won’t notice during lights out if this is in a bedroom. The motor is whisper quiet, so you’ll likely never hear it panning.

Aqara Camera E1: Ease of use

Setting up the Camera E1 is simple, as the Aqara and Apple Home apps do so with a QR code. If you have everything necessary, you’ll be up and running in just a few minutes. In this case, having everything necessary would mean you own a power adapter because the E1 doesn’t come with the brick in the box, just the USB-C cable.

Setting up the privacy features in the Aqara Home app is a breeze, and though there is a bit of a delay, the manual pan and tilt features work well. You should know that once you bind the camera to HomeKit, or if you choose to forgo Aqara Home and only use HK, you lose access to many privacy features, as well as manual pan and tilt control. It will still track humans and detect motion, but you won’t be able to set those privacy positions and you lose the ability to set up to three occlusion zones. For the privacy features, you’ll have to set those up in Aqara Home as scenes first, which are then exposed to Apple Home. Then, you can trigger them using automation in Apple Home without needing the Aqara Home app.

One significant aspect of the privacy features is that they’re processed locally. The E1 has a built-in neural processing unit that enables person and sound detection on the device.

As I alluded to earlier in the piece, my only gripe with Aqara’s Indoor Security Camera E1 is that the human-tracking automatic pan and tilt is finicky. I’ve found that placement affects its ability to track, just like the Camera Hub G3. When the camera is placed around hip height (I’m 6’ tall), I’ve found it a bit slow to pan with moving objects, namely me. Place the camera higher where its AI can pick up faces, and your human tracking improves.

Aqara Camera E1: Competition

Pan and tilt options that support HomeKit Secure Video are few, but there are two other cameras worth checking out. We reviewed and liked Eufy’s Pan 2K which is now the 2K Indoor Cam E220 and right now its price can’t be beat at only $35.99 on Eufy’s site and Amazon. 

VOCOlinc Opto HomeKit Indoor Camera is also an option at a lower cost, available on their site for $49.99. It also has pan and tilt functionality but is only running 1080P video which is fine because of the HKSV limitations when binding 2K cameras like the E1. HomeKit knocks 2K video down to 1080P in Apple Home and for video recorded to the cloud.

Aqara Camera E1: Should you buy it?

You should buy this if...

•  You want pan and tilt at a great price 
•  The privacy features are essential for your use case 
•  You don’t need all of the Camera Hub G3 features 

You shouldn't buy this if...

•  You need to mount it on a vertical surface like a wall 

Aqara Camera E1: Verdict

With the Aqara Indoor Security Camera E1, you get quite a bit of camera for a great price. Onboard person and sound detection and robust privacy features make this a great option for use cases where what’s on camera at certain times is a concern. Wi-Fi 6 means you have more reliable live video feed access in homes with dozens of other Wi-Fi gadgets, and 360-degree rotation means you can see almost everything. 

There aren’t many pan and tilts at this price point with this feature set, so the Camera E1 should be on your shortlist if you’re after PT functionality. Even if you don’t need the hub but PT is essential, consider looking at the Camera Hub G3, which has more reliable tracking, built-in facial recognition, and an alarm exposed in HomeKit.

When you first unbox Aqara’s diminutive Camera Hub, you’re greeted by a tiny face with removable cat ears. It’s all very kawaii (Japanese slang for “cute”) if you’re into anime and such, but that cute little face belies a monster of a device inside. 

It does a lot and you’re going to wind up asking yourself, “Do I run this through HomeKit or their proprietary app Aqara Home, or a bit of both?” It may be overwhelming. Good thing the Apple Home and Aqara Home apps are both well-designed and easy to use. Let’s get into it!

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Price and availability

The Aqara 2K Security Indoor Camera Hub G3 is available through Amazon for $109.99 but looking over price tracking history, in December and January, the G3 was on sale in the 80-dollar range.

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Specs and features

The Camera Hub G3 is a nearly five-inch tall robot-shaped device that pans 340 degrees horizontally, tilts 30 degrees up, and 15 degrees down. It can do that automatically with AI-powered tracking, or manually via the Aqara app, but no manual control in Apple’s Home app. Pair that all with a 110-degree field of view; you should be able to capture everything in almost any room. 

The centerpiece of the unit, the high-resolution 2K 2304x1296P camera, and its infrared night vision LED module have a face on it, which is cute and functional. When the G3 is “live” you can see the camera, but for privacy, you can stop the live feed and the lens module rotates into the “head” housing, exposing another look, eyelashes. Yes, you can tell the camera is “sleeping” because the face shows that. 

If you’re still uncomfortable with that, you can store a preset viewing angle and send it there. To the left and right of the lens and LEDs are two microphones that allow you to have two-way conversations, detect abnormal sounds, stream audio, and record it. The audio recording is pretty good from the dual mic setup! 

The front also has a microSD slot which supports up to 128GB of storage. You access it by turning off the camera’s live feed and having the cute eyelash cover rotate into view. Below is a status LED that glows red when active, along with some subtle branding. The back of the camera is where you’ll find the speaker and the USB-C port which also supports video output directly from the unit via the UVC protocol, so if you connect the Camera Hub G3 to your computer for example, it should automatically recognize it.

You can set the Camera Hub G3 on a flat surface like a bookshelf, or mount it via the standard tripod quarter-inch threads on the bottom. It can be mounted upside down, then the image adjusted accordingly in the Aqara Home app.

Aqara’s Camera Hub G3 has a neural processing unit (NPU), powering some AI functions that don’t require an internet connection. A Zigbee 3.0 smart home hub on board allows you to connect up to 128 Aqara devices to the G3, though you’ll need to include repeater devices like a wall switch or smart plug in your setup to achieve that number.

The Camera Hub G3 supports both 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi connections, and Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3). There’s also IR blaster support for your home devices which still use that standard.

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Build and looks

The Aqara Camera Hub G3 looks like something you’d buy in a Sanrio store (Hello Kitty) until you remove the pre-installed cat ears accessory hood. You can set the Camera Hub G3 on a flat surface like a bookshelf, or mount it via the standard tripod quarter-inch threads on the bottom. It can be mounted upside down, then the image adjusted accordingly in the Aqara Home app.

Though it’s mostly plastic, the Camera Hub G3 gives the impression that it is well-made and will be long-lasting indoors. The pan and tilt motor is whisper quiet, and the different faces for the lens cover, though novel, put the “fun” in “functional.” It should look right at home with just about any decor, and you can remove those cat ears if that’s a bit too flamboyant for your feng shui.

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Ease of use

Aqara’s Camera Hub G3 does so much that it would take a few pages of a deep, deep dive article to address them all thoroughly, yet its features in the Aqara app are clearly laid out and easy to use. And since not all of those features are exposed in Apple Home, it’s even easier to use there. That was one of the hallmarks of all the Aqara cameras I’ve tested recently, ease of use. This G3 was set up in less than ten minutes and I thoroughly enjoyed the voice confirmations I received from the unit as I completed specific steps in the onboarding process.

I have the G3 connected to my 5GHz wifi network. Opening either app and connecting to its live feeds has been fast each time. I’ve even opened Apple Home on my Apple Watch Series 9 and held conversations with my wife, which was pretty cool! No glitching, fluid audio, and picture, all from my wrist.

Movement tracking is easy with the G3. You can set it to track humans, dogs, and cats, work with face detection, or gestures, and there’s a cruise option that will set the camera to pan and tilt to pre-defined positions for a period of time. Face detection from Aqara works by uploading pics from your phone, or snapping a pic of someone’s face right then and there. Then you can set automations like getting a notification when little Jamaal gets home from school. Gesture activation allows you to assign automations to five different hand gestures, but that disables the human and animal tracking functions.

Speaking of tracking, I really thought the G3’s ability to keep up with the humans it was tracking was admirable. If someone is running, or moving rapidly, it may lose them though. When the G3 is tracking someone and panning and tilting to keep up, you’ll see the video pixelate a bit until the camera settles, and then the video clears up and is solid again.

For the security conscious, using the Aqara Home app’s face detection requires you to upload those images to Aqara’s cloud servers. With the G3 having a built-in neural processing unit, I’d like to see facial recognition store images locally as well. 

There are some other minor issues I’d like to see improved. The graininess the camera picks up when it’s in motion isn’t ideal. I’d also like to see the manual pan and tilt features, as well as the predefined position setting available in Apple’s Home app.

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Competition

There isn’t a lot of competition at this price point with comparable features, considering the G3 has a built-in Zigbee hub. 

One alternative worth a look at is Eufy’s E220. It has a larger 125-degree field of view and an 8X digital zoom. The E220 is half the price but is 2.4GHz wifi only, has no privacy mode, and doesn’t include a built-in hub for connecting other IoT devices. 

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Should you buy it?

You should buy it if..

• You like Aqara and want to connect more devices
• You want a pan and tilt HKSV camera with a robust feature-set
• You want a camera with a physical privacy mode

You shouldn’t buy it if…

• You want a camera closer to $50
• You don’t need hub functionality

Aqara Camera Hub G3: Verdict

Besides being a cute camera with removable cat ears, Aqara’s Camera Hub G3 is a powerhouse of features at a fair price. Aqara has some great IoT devices in their offerings of motion sensors, window/door sensors, and automated blinds, so having the hub built-in is a great feature. 

With Matter support, HomeKit exposed alarm functionality, USB-C video out, local storage, and local AI processing, you have a winning package that is hard to beat in the indoor pan and tilt camera market. The Aqara Camera Hub G3 is easy to recommend.

Aqara is a top-tier HomeKit smart home device manufacturer. Window/door, temperature, motion, and vibration sensors are among the items you can buy from them but when you put a device like the Camera Hub G2H Pro in the mix, you can now connect everything without needing a separate hub. That and some strong privacy and security features make this an indoor security camera well worth taking a hard look at. 

Aqara Camera Hub G2H Pro: Price and availability

 The Camera Hub G2H Pro is currently available on Amazon in the U.S. for $69.99 and in any color you want, as long as it's white. 

Aqara Camera Hub G2H Pro: Specs and features

What I like about Aqara and this camera hub is their attention to privacy features and ease of use. Going into the Aqara Home app, you can tap into the video settings and set up a privacy occlusion area. Let’s say you’re in a condominium and your children's bedroom windows are on the first floor. You want to place a camera but don’t want them recorded, only the window. Tap into the privacy occlusion area feature, and using a grid, you can drag up to three areas on the screen which will place black bars over your recordings. No image, or action/motion will be recorded in the occluded area. You can even disable audio recording to give you even more privacy.

For a 1080P camera, the video is pretty good. There is better out there, but ultimately HomeKit Secure Video takes all those 2k and 4k cameras and records in 1080P anyway. Mounted opposite a large sliding glass door, the light streaming in from it washes out some details on that side of the room, but you’re going to deal with that from many cameras to varying degrees. Details in videos like lettering on a picture on the wall, and faces are easy to make out within around 20 feet from the camera, but the further out you go, they’ll lose fine detail.

Supporting Siri, Alexa, and Google Home makes this a great camera for someone like me who uses iOS primarily, but whose wife prefers Google and Alexa. Using Ark 2.0  makes this a unique option for failsafe automation usage. 

In a nutshell, Ark 2.0 allows some of your devices to connect to others via a mesh network and still run local automation even if the internet connection goes down. This is a critical security function because there are those with nefarious intentions who use Wi-Fi jammers to knock out internet-connected cameras before breaking into a home. And those jammers are fairly easy to come by for those interested in committing property crimes. 

In terms of connectivity, the G2H is 2.4GHz Wi-Fi only, with a built-in Zigbee 3.0 hub. It is powered by a dated microUSB to USB-A cable.

Aqara Camera Hub G2H Pro: Build and looks

The Camera Hub G2H Pro is a plastic affair, but I haven't seen a bunch of negative reviews or Reddit posts complaining about long-term durability. It's smaller than Aqara's G3, and E1, standing a diminutive 3.24 inches tall by 2 inches wide, unless you raise it up on its extendable base. 

The bottom of the G2H Pro features a magnet that is strong enough to attach to many metallic or iron surfaces. I mounted mine to an iron apron hook thingy in my kitchen/dining room area, and it feels quite solid there. Also, on the bottom, you'll find a microSD slot that supports up to 512GB of storage and, next to that, a reset button.

Aqara Camera Hub G2H Pro: Ease of use

 Aqara’s Camera Hub G2H Pro is easy to set up and use. Opening the box, you’re met with a micro USB to USB A cable, but no power adapter, a 3M patch for mounting to various surfaces, the manual, an ejector tool, and a metal plate. I didn’t use the metal plate or the 3M sticker for mounting; instead, I used the powerful magnet to attach it to an apron hook mounted on the wall between my kitchen and dining room. Mounting there felt quite secure and gave me views of my dining area, living room, and a portion of my kitchen. 

Connecting the camera to the Aqara app and HomeKit was as easy as scanning some QR codes, and following the prompts, which took less than 10 minutes to do.

Once connected to Wi-Fi, you can go through the Aqara app and configure all of the privacy and security, automation, motion/abnormal sound detection, and custom ringtone settings. Since the Hub G2H Pro now supports Apple HomeKit Security, you can jump into the Apple Home app and set up automation and alerts based on the four-alarm modes supported in that app. With those alarm modes and any motion or sound detection configured, you can use the available onboard storage, up to 512GB via microSD, to run your video continuously 24/7 or per alarm event. You’ll get about a week’s worth of video if you run it 24/7.

Aqara Camera Hub G2H Pro: Competition

At $69.99 the Camera Hub G2H Pro doesn’t really have a direct competitor because it includes the Zigbee 3.0 hub. That said, for $40 more you should take a look at Aqara’s Camera Hub G3. 

The Hub G3 also supports connection with up to 128 Aqara smart home devices, but it advances every feature the G2H Pro has except for image occlusion. The G3 also adds pan and tilt to the equation. And if a $40 difference seems steep, a quick look at historical pricing shows that the G3 has been on sale twice in the last four months for $87.49, which is only a ~$15 difference. 

Aqara Camera Hub G2H Pro: Should you buy it?

You should buy this if...

• You are invested in the Aqara ecosystem
• You want a camera with great mounting options
• You want a camera with great privacy options

You shouldn’t buy it if…

• You want pan/tilt/zoom functionality
• You want 5GHz Wi-Fi connectivity

Aqara Camera Hub G2H Pro: Verdict

A built-in Zigbee 3.0 hub, flexible mounting options, great privacy controls, and good video make the Aqara Camera Hub G2H Pro a great option for those wanting to fill their home up with Aqara’s wallet-friendly sensors and camera options. And the $69.99 price point for all of that isn’t bad either. Add onto that HomeKit Security and Ark 2.0 support and you have a robust hub, camera, and basic security system to help watch over and protect what’s precious to you. 

If you’re just jumping into the market, I’d suggest looking at the newer Camera Hub G3, but you may not need all that has to offer. Either way, the G2H Pro is a good purchase in building out your smart home security.  

A new report has reiterated that Apple is pressing on with plans to build a robotic iPad smart home command center, that could cost upwards of $1,000.

For a while, Apple has had a rumored HomePod with a screen in the works, as well as other robotic smart home devices. It looks like Apple is pushing ahead with at least one of these super-secret projects. 

Writing for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman says that Apple "is moving forward with development of a pricey tabletop home device that combines an iPad-like display with a robotic limb."

Apple's smart home robot

The report says Apple has "a team of several hundred people" working on a new smart home device with a "thin robotic arm" that holds a large screen. The product will reportedly use actuators to move the display, tilting it up and down and rotating it 360. It's reportedly a twist on Amazon's Echo Show 10 or Meta's old Portal.

Gurman says the device will be "a smart home command center, videoconferencing machine and remote-controlled home security tool," and that the project has started to formally ramp up in recent months. 

Apple is reportedly prioritizing development with a view to debuting the product "as early as 2026 or 2027, but it could be pretty expensive. Gurman says Apple is trying to get the price down to around $1,000. 

The project is being helmed by Apple's veteran Apple Watch exec Kevin Lynch. 

As for interaction, the product will reportedly be controlled using Siri and upcoming Apple Intelligence features, with commands including 'look at me' on the cards. The device is currently being tested using a modified version of iPadOS.

If Apple can make its smart home robot work, it could be one of the most exciting product launches from the company in recent memory. It would cover a real gap in Apple's smart home lineup, filling the role of the smart home hub currently carried by the Apple TV 4K and the HomePod lineup. While the device sounds pricey, it's certainly going to be cheaper than Apple Vision Pro, increasing market appeal. 

More from iMore

• HomePod mini: Is Apple's smart speaker worth getting for a dumb home
• I turned my HiFi system into a very expensive HomePod
• Skeptical about HomePod? Me too. Use Apple's return policy to try it

There is no shortage of HomeKit smart home accessories these days, and we haven't always been able to say that. Aqara is one company that has a record of producing solid options for people who want HomeKit-compatible hardware, and the company's latest accessory is a new presence sensor.

The Aqara Presence Sensor FP1E is designed to help people create smart home automation that needs to know whether someone is in the room before being initiated. Such a thing would be useful if you want to turn the lights off when people leave a room, for example.

However, while this new Aqara presence sensor does support HomeKit there's something of a catch — you'll need Aqara's Matter Bridge for it to work.

Smart monitoring

Aqara announced the presence sensor via press release, saying that it allows "for precise, prompt presence detection that can be used for various home automation scenarios."

When installed alongside a hub the accessory will work with all Matter-compatible platforms including HomeKit as well as Amazon's Alexa, Google Home, and more.

The press release also detailed what makes a presence sensor so useful.

"Aqara Home users can utilize the FP1E to detect human movement or stillness within a space, unlocking a wide range of automation possibilities triggered by moving/still status along with the status duration," Aqara explains. "For example, the sensor can detect if the user remained still for over 30 minutes and can send notifications or change the color of the user’s smart lights as a gentle reminder to stand up. This automation aims to promote a healthier routine, reduce the risks of sedentary behavior, and prioritize self-care with visual cues and reminders."

If that sounds like something that you could make use of, the new Aqara presence sensor is available now for $50.

More from iMore

• My dog hated this HomeKit smart pet feeder, but this is why yours will love it
• How to make your pet parenting easier with HomeKit
• I got a doorbell for HomeKit, and now I can't live without it

I'm a huge fan of Logitech's Circle View security camera. It's definitely the best-looking HomeKit-enabled smart home camera and I currently own two of them to help keep an eye on my pets (and my home) when I'm away from it.

As a fan and an owner of the product, I was horrified when Logitech's new CEO, Hanneke Faber, said in an interview with The Verge's Nilay Patel that its smart home products — like the Circle View — were "pretty much gone."

In an interview on Decoder, Patel mentioned that the company makes everything from mice to keyboards and even smart home doorbells. In response to that, Faber said "I think those are pretty much gone." When Patel inquired further, the CEO said "I need to double-check, but I’m not even sure those are still being sold."

Logitech's CEO doesn't know what she's talking about

While that sent every Logitech HomeKit fan into a frenzy, it thankfully doesn't appear that Logitech's new CEO knew what she was talking about when she said that its smart home products, like the Circle View Doorbell, were going away for good.

In a statement to The Verge following the interview, Logitech’s Wendy Spander, the company's global head of communications, confirmed the products were alive and well. Spander said “The Circle View products are still in production, and we currently sell them (as do our retail partners). They have not been discontinued. They are in stock and ready to ship.”

Of course, just because the Circle View products are available now doesn't mean that the company doesn't plan to phase them out. Its CEO said that its three key areas are now personal workspace, video conferencing, and gaming. Smart home seems to be taking a backseat, so what if they do get rid of them? Thankfully, Faber confirmed that, if they did get rid of the Circle View products, "We’ll continue to support, of course, what we’ve sold for some time."

I hope the company sticks with its smart home products. They're one of the other brands to support HomeKit Secure Video, so losing Logitech would leave us HomeKit fans with few options.

More from iMore

• My dog hated this HomeKit smart pet feeder, but this is why yours ...
• How to make your pet parenting easier with HomeKit
• I got a doorbell for HomeKit, and now I can't live without it

Air purifiers can make a real difference to the air quality in your home. Whether you’re susceptible to dust allergies, hayfever, general pollutants, or the dander from pets, an air purifier can capture the particles that would otherwise irritate and annoy our sensitive airways.

They’re an increasingly common sight in our homes, particularly for city-dwellers, but they tend to be quite industrial in their design, medical-looking, even. They’ll get tucked away in a corner, rather than being a centerpiece for your home.

The Smartmi Air Purifier E1 hopes to change that. With its arty covers and wall-mountable design, it wants prominent placement in your living spaces. That it gets its core job done very effectively is a plus — but its unique filters might make long-term maintenance costly.

Price and Availability

The Smartmi Air Purifier E1 is available now direct from Smartmi, with an RRP of $160, with a 3-pack of filters priced at $129.99. Though its price has fluctuated since launch, at that price point it makes for a relatively inexpensive air purification system, but the fact that the filters are built specifically for the E1 means you’ll be locked into a pricey filter replacement cycle for the device’s life. But it’s also one of the better-looking air purifiers available, and so that’s what you’re paying for, ultimately.

What I love

If home aesthetics are important to you, the Smartmi Air Purifier E1 is a great choice. Before you’ve even switched it on, it’s trying to catch your eye. A frame-like box, rather than the cylindrical designs that seem to dominate the consumer purifier market, it can be wall-mounted and is designed to be paired with a number of arty filters. They give a pop of color where other similar purifiers can feel sterile, and the purifier’s not insubstantial 313 x 415 x 118mm size, that’s a good thing.

That slickness extends to the set-up process too. Wall-mounting screw brackets are part of the package, though it’s easier to set up the E1 for a floor-standing setup with the included metal foot frame, which simply clips into the bottom of the purifier. I did find it interesting that the instructions encourage you to keep a 20 cm radius around the purifier when floor-standing it though — I’m not sure what performance effect that would have when wall mounting, given it’d be impossible to make that clearance. Swapping the colorful filters is a breeze, however, sliding up and out of the main plastic housing that holds the extraction fan and electronics. 

There are just two simple controls on the device itself — two orange buttons that control power and the extraction level, each with accompanying LED indicators that can be toggled off — and so most of the interesting stuff is left to the accompanying app. As well as Apple Home integration, the Smartmi Air Purifier E1 works with Google Home and Alexa, so can easily be controlled by your smart home assistant of choice — Samsung SmartThings and Matter support being the only notable missing standards. 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connectivity gets the purifier talking to your other smart home devices and the app.

The app is pretty stripped back as, as we will get onto shortly, there is not the usual array of sensors onboard that you’d find with pricier air purifiers. You can check filter life, set timers, switch power modes (listed as ‘gears’ in the app) and integrate into your Apple Home set up via HomeKit, and that’s about it. Note that, once integrated into the Apple Home interface, the slider-like mechanic for tweaking power levels can be a bit confusing — it doesn’t illustrate the steps between the three different power levels.

Onto the air purifying process itself. The Smartmi Air Purifier E1 is intended for ‘small to medium’ rooms, with Smartmi suggesting a max size of 205 square feet or below for optimal performance. The purifier is equipped with a replaceable HEP13 filter which can tackle irritants like dust, pollen, and pet dander, as well as removing odors and low-level smoke build-up. It’ll handle these up to a PM2.5 rating — which means fine particles 2.5 microns or less in diameter, which is smaller than the thickness of human hair, while an active carbon layer in the filter will deal with many VOCs (volatile organic compounds), such as the airborne chemical leftovers from hair sprays and perfumes.

It’s done a great job around my home. My office window opens out towards a nearby main road, and the annual summer dance between cooling the room with the window open and breathing in the resultant pollutants is never a fun one. After an hour or so with the purifier on after having the window open, I can tell the difference in how much cleaner the air feels. As a sporadic asthmatic, it’s helped too — I’m sleeping much easier with the purifier on overnight, and its quiet operation means it doesn’t disturb too much when on.

What I don’t love

The long-term cost of filters for the Smartmi Air Purifier E1 could be an issue. A proprietary design, you’re not going to be able to equip the purifier with off-the-shelf alternatives that other companies offer. Of course, to do so would be missing the point of what the Smartmi device offers — an arty smart home unit, rather than a generic appliance. But you’ll want to factor that long-term cost into the purchase price, and consider stocking up on filters in advance, as you never can tell how long a product will be supported for.

A second annoyance is the lack of sensor data from the purifier. Though it can handle PM2.5 particles, it doesn’t have the means to track how much it’s pulled out of the air, so you’re going to need to add a secondary air quality sensor to your smart home array for more than an anecdotal sense of cleanliness.

It’s also a shame not to see Matter support included here — the open smart home standard, it would have future-proofed the purifier to any shake ups to your smart home setup in the future.

Verdict

Some of the best HomeKit air purifiers we’ve looked at on iMore succeed in clearing the air in a room, but can be pretty dull looking in the process. The Smartmi Air Purifier E1 doesn’t have that problem — well equipped for cleaning the air of small rooms, and good looking at the same time, it’s a great air purifier. Just don’t go in expecting to get lots of cleaning data from the job, and be ready to stock up on filters.

I’m a sucker for smart lighting. If it adds a little ambiance in a room and can be connected to some form of larger scene for some customization throughout the night, it can grab my interest. If it fits into my life without much effort, it will hold my interest for a long time. 

Recently, I’ve been testing out the Govee RGBICWW Floor Lamp Pro, and the Floor Lamp 2. Despite that Pro name and a heftier price tag, I’d strongly recommend you pick up the Floor Lamp 2 instead if you’re an Apple fan. You will thank me later. 

Let’s talk about that whole “Pro” thing

The Govee Floor Lamp Pro costs $219.99 at full price. The Floor Lamp 2, however, is just $149.99 at full price. Both prices are reasonable, especially considering Philips’ option, the Philips Signe gradient floor lamp is $329.99.

For that extra cost, the Govee Floor Lamp Pro is brighter and taller. In a room, it looks a bit nicer and has better customizability. It’s a seriously impressive bit of kit that comes with a magnetic remote control you can use to change between scenes and even play preloaded background sounds like a fire, a lullaby, and the crackling of fire. The speaker quality isn’t great but it’s good enough to add to the ambiance. 

However, the Govee Floor Lamp Pro has one fatal flaw that stops me from recommending it to an Apple fan. 

What’s the Matter? 

Apple, from its ecosystem integration to its range of HomePod smart speakers, makes a great candidate as the basis for a smart home. The Home app is great, shortcuts are surprisingly intuitive to build, and the fact it can couple easily to your best iPhone makes it even better. As you might be able to guess from this preamble, the Govee Floor Lamp Pro is not compatible with HomeKit. If you have a smart home setup or want to one day commit to one, this Pro lamp will, unfortunately, sit just outside of it. You can control it with the remote or via its own app, but you can’t set up automations with it in mind. 

The Govee Floor Lamp 2, however, is Matter-supported, which means it can fit into your Apple smart home easily. It is also pretty great, with nice lighting, custom scenes, and its own controller. It’s a step down in some ways from the Pro model but is available at a much nicer price point. If you just want a nice lamp, the Pro is a good shout but, for an Apple fan, I wouldn’t recommend anything other than the Floor Lamp 2. 

When Apple announced the Midnight HomePod mini earlier this week it was also confirmed that it would take the place of the previous Space Gray in the miniature HomePod lineup. But the problem was that the pair looked identical. Turns out, they actually aren't.

The press images that Apple shared certainly didn't give the game away but now that the new color is officially on sale we can indeed confirm that the Midnight HomePod mini is different from the Space Gray one, although you still might need to see them in the flesh to be sure depending on what you're reading this on.

In a video posted to the X social network, Nikias Molina lifted the lid on what you can expect from your new HomePod mini and while it's definitely different, we don't think many people will be ditching their Space Gray model to switch.

HomePod mini gets the blues

As you'll see in the video below, the Midnight HomePod mini is definitely more blue than the Space Gray one which shouldn't be all that surprising if you've seen any of Apple's other Midnight products. The M3 MacBook Air springs to mind, but as you'll no doubt agree, the difference between the two colors isn't a huge one — albeit it's one that's significantly bigger than what we originally expected.

The new Midnight HomePod mini joins the existing colors and sells for the same $99. It also has the same internals, so the only difference you'll notice is that change in external color.

Still, if you're someone who looked at the Space Gray HomePod mini and wished it was just a tad more blue, now is your time to treat yourself.

More from iMore

• HomePod mini: Is Apple's smart speaker worth getting for a dumb home?
• I turned my HiFi system into a very expensive HomePod – but there's a catch
• HomePod mini review: Small but mighty

Popular smart home accessory maker Eve has today unveiled its brand new Eve Weather smart weather station, which comes with Matter compatibility for interoperability with smart homes beyond HomeKit. 

The company’s previous Eve Weather station (which remains available), is a HomeKit-exclusive weather station that integrates with your Apple Home ecosystem to give you hyperlocal weather data including temperature and humidity. Now, a new version replete with Matter means you can add one to your smart home even if you don’t have a HomeKit ecosystem. 

Matter is a new umbrella smart home connectivity standard that brings interoperability across ecosystems like Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon, and beyond. It means in principle that you can control HomeKit devices with Alexa, or devices that aren’t HomeKit enabled with Siri, to name a couple of uses. 

Why Eve’s weather station matters 

Eve’s new Weather Station is $79.95, just like the HomeKit version. It also looks the same, with a water-resistant (IPX4) aluminum housing. It features sensors for temperature, humidity, and air pressure, so you can get an accurate picture of the weather where you are without relying on Apple’s (frankly erratic) Weather app. 

Eve Weather can also automatically analyze the changes in air pressure to deliver a weather trend for the next 12 hours, with data delivered right to your iPhone or Android device. You can also connect Eve Weather to Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant. 

Just like the HomeKit version, this one also supports automation, for instance, if the temperature falls below a certain level, your smart home can turn on your heating. Only now, these automations extend across a multitude of smart home ecosystems, not just HomeKit. 

The Eve Weather is available now from evehome.com and Amazon for $79.95. If you already own Eve’s HomeKit version, there’s a free firmware upgrade that will bring Matter support to your existing device. 

More from iMore

• How to get real-time precipitation alerts in the Weather app
• Netatmo Weather Station is long on looks, longer on data
• iPhone weather apps are bad at predicting snowfall 

As Prime Day draws to a close for another year, now is a perfect time to consider upgrading your home with smart HomeKit devices.

Back in 2021, I spent much of the year upgrading our home with smart lights as well as cameras to monitor our dog Jolly when we had to go out for an errand. In the three years since I bought these smart devices, they've been incredibly helpful in using Apple's Home app on the best iPhones and best iPads to toggle the lights and check the rooms in the house for peace of mind.

Amid the Prime Day rush, I've spotted a few HomeKit accessories that have some great discounts, making it a perfect opportunity for you to get started on transforming your home into a smart one.

Six of the best HomeKit deals so far

Keep in mind that if you want to use all of these devices remotely through Apple's Home app, you'll need a hub such as an Apple TV or a HomePod. This will use your internet to keep you connected via your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.

With Prime Day deals constantly changing and disappearing before the sales event ends for another year, you'll likely see more discounts on some HomeKit peripherals very soon.

The Amazon Echo Spot is marketed as the perfect smart display for your bedside and for good reason. With a decent speaker and really nice display, the device is perfect for anyone who wants to upgrade from their HomePod mini or Echo Dot and actually get a display to look at when they interact with their assistant.

That's the case even when the Echo Spot is at full price. For Prime Day, however, this proposition gets even better since Amazon went ahead and cut the price of the Echo Spot by $35 (almost 50% off) down to just $44.99.

Amazon Echo Spot — $35 off

• Echo Spot deals: Best Buy | Amazon

The Amazon Echo Spot has a lot of features packed into such a small smart speaker — so much so that, with this Prime Day deal, I'm staring at my HomePod mini wondering when Apple will finally release one with a display.

The new generation of the Echo Spot, which was released this year, features a new design with a new speaker to blast out all of your favorite music, podcasts, and
audiobooks (from Amazon Music and Audible, the company hopes). That said, the speaker is also compatible with Spotify, Apple Music, and more of the usual suspects in the streaming market.

Like any good smart speaker/display, you can also use the Echo Spot to control your smart home, set and manage alarms and timers, and kick off Routines that you've configured in the Alexa app on your iPhone. You can also ask it to check reminders, the weather, and more.

At $44 for Prime Day, the Echo Spot is a great deal for anyone who wants to forgo paying over twice that price for one HomePod mini which doesn't even have a display. Amazon continues to dominate the smart home.

When my girlfriend gifted me the Ember Mug 2 for Christmas I had no idea how much of a life-changing product it was. Fast forward seven months and I’ve been waiting patiently until Prime Day 2024 to share my passion for Ember’s smart mug. Seriously — the other iMore editors are sick of me talking about. This is my moment!

You see, I’m super forgetful, like ridiculously forgetful to the point where I lose things multiple times a day and always forget to drink my tea or coffee. Not only am I scatterbrained but I have a coffee addiction that I rely on to get through each and every morning. Now, imagine a forgetful brain that needs coffee to function properly: For months I was spiraling in a vicious circle where I couldn’t function until my daily caffeine hit reached my bloodstream, but I’d forget to drink it and not bother with a cold elixir — 

That was until Ember entered my life. And I'm happy to report that it's on sale today at a penny shy of $120 — 20% off its usual £149.95 asking price.

The Ember Mug 2 connects to your iPhone via Bluetooth and keeps liquid hot to your desired temperature for up to 2 hours thanks to its built in heater and battery. If you use the included charging coaster, you can keep liquid hot indefinitely, which is pretty gross, to be honest, but my word is it game-changing. 

I’ve not missed a morning coffee since owning the Ember and I often find myself remembering to drink my caffeine long into the early afternoon when it would otherwise be stone cold. I can neither confirm nor deny how long I’ve tried to keep liquid hot... but it may or may not be past the 72-hour mark...

Just buy an Ember, trust me

For Prime Day, some of Ember’s best products are heavily discounted and I genuinely can’t recommend them enough. There’s the 14oz mug I use every day alongside a smaller 10oz option and a Travel Mug for taking your hot drinks on the go. With 20% off, the Ember Mug 2 can be snagged this Prime Day for $119 and while that may sound like a lot it could very well be the best $119 you ever spend.

From one forgetful coffee and tech lover to another, just buy an Ember. It could seriously change your life.

After testing out eufy’s X10 Pro robot vacuum for the past week, it’s convinced me to finally get rid of the Henry Vacuum Cleaner I’ve owned for several years. 

Vacuuming can be a frustrating experience. There’s always the risk of tripping over the power cord or the vacuum itself as you try to suck up that lone cobweb in the kitchen. Finding time to vacuum can also be a challenge, especially if you have a newborn son and an incredibly active dog like I do. Additionally, mopping rooms that have a tiled floor can be another boring chore, especially when you have to make sure that no one steps on it once you’re done so you don’t have to go back and mop up a lone dirty footprint.

Imagine my delight once I started testing eufy’s X10 Pro robot vacuum, and found that it took care of all of these chores with ease. Currently at a $200 discount on Amazon for $599.99 to mark the start of Prime Day, I’m already besotted by my experience with it.

Living with a robot vacuum is the future

Using the eufy Clean app on my iPhone, I can schedule the X10 Pro to clean up certain parts of my home. I can ask it to vacuum, mop, or do both whenever I want. Already, it’s cleaned up far more dirt than my previous vacuum ever could. For example, the floor in the hallway now looks pristine every time I come home.

If you’ve been considering replacing your manual vacuum, you’ll be as surprised as I was once you fit in the X10 around your home. At $599, it’s a fantastic price to take over the chores that most of us dread.

Now that Prime Day is finally here, it can be easy to get lost in the ocean of deals on Amazon. Rather unsurprisingly, one of the very best out there is from Amazon itself — getting a top-notch smart video doorbell for half off.

The Ring video doorbell, one of the most popular doorbells right now, is available in an exclusive Prime Day Deal, and it’s a seriously good bit of tech for the price. If you are looking to vet potential visitors from the comfort of your couch, you can do that. If you just fancy checking up on your home while you are out, you can do that too. Whether you are just feeling a little lazy today and don’t want to get the door yourself or want to know if the package you’ve been waiting on has arrived while you are at the office, you can do both with ease. 

If you buy a Ring video doorbell today, it will arrive tomorrow, ready to be set up for the weekend. Given the popularity, we can’t guarantee stocks will last during the entirety of Prime Day so if you’ve been waiting a while to pull the trigger on a smart doorbell, now is the best time to pick it up. 

Who’s there?

Unfortunately, the Ring doorbell doesn’t natively connect to HomeKit so you will have to use it through Ring’s own app. However, there is a workaround, in the form of the Hoobs smart home box. It is quite expensive at $249.99 on sale but works to link Homekit, Google Home, and Alexa together. If you are specifically looking for a video doorbell that works with Homekit, you can pick up the Aqara G4 video doorbell for $119.99 with next-day shipping. There are so many great ways to add to your smart home. 

The Ring video doorbell can add a lot not only to allow for easy communication at your door but to add a little peace of mind. Being able to literally see what’s at the door when you hear a noise, it does a lot to justify that low price point. 

Smart locks are not only great for keeping your home more secure but also excellent for those moments where you’ve forgotten your keys. No more calling a locksmith or your landlord when your front door accidentally closes behind you, simply put your thumb against the fingerprint scanner or pop open the app and let yourself back in. Now, with the Aqara U100 being $40 off on Amazon Prime Day, you can get a more secure home for even cheaper. 

What makes the Aqara U100 work so well for Apple fans is it comes with Apple HomeKit compatibility out of the box, being able to open it with nothing but your Apple Watch or iPhone. Even if both devices run out of power, you have other ways of getting into the lock so it functions like normal when your setup is a little less smart. 

Now is the perfect time to make the upgrade with this deal, and as it’s HomeKit compatible, you can fit it into the rest of your Apple-oriented smart home setup with ease. 

No need for keys anymore

The deal we’ve picked out comes bundled with the E1 smart hub for free, which easily allows you to set up automations with ecosystems. This way, you can easily connect it to a smart doorbell, like the Aqara G4, to let visitors in easily. With different codes for different people, this smart lock can fit into your smart home by setting scenes for specific people. If you tend to get back in the early morning, you can set your lock to make sure your house heats up when you come in. If you want that heat to dissipate as you leave for work, you can set your smart home to do that too. Not only can a lock like this make you more secure but it makes your entire home smarter.  

With Amazon Prime, the Aqara smart lock can arrive as early as tomorrow, and a quick setup means you can be ready to go very soon. 

Once the dust has settled around the Vision Pro and Apple Intelligence launches, Apple’s ‘next big thing’, according to leaks and rumors, is a push into the robotic. The first fruits of that labor are expected to be a revised HomePod, complete with screen and robotic face-tracking capabilities for FaceTime video calls. 

Sound familiar? It should — it’s conceptually almost identical to Amazon’s third-generation Echo Show 10. And not only is Amazon’s speaker already here, but it’s hugely discounted for Amazon Prime Day, too.

Usually on sale for $249.99, you can pick up Amazon’s top-tier Echo smart speaker for just $199.99 today, knocking 20% (or $50) off its usual RRP price.

Super smart speaker savings

• Speaker deals: Walmart | Best Buy | Amazon | Dell

Amazon’s Echo Show 10 third-generation may be a few years old now (it was released in 2021) — but it remains the most advanced smart speaker on the market thanks to its rotating base. Paired with a 10-inch display and camera, its mechanized components will ensure that, during video calls, your face remains framed onscreen, and that any shows you may be watching remain visible as you move around a room. It makes for a great experience particularly when placed in a kitchen, letting you follow along with video recipes as you move around and get cooking.

It’s a great-sounding speaker, too. With a three-inch woofer and two one-inch tweeters, the voice-controlled Echo Show 10 is able to blast your tunes out with just a phrase.

While it lacks HomeKit capabilities, those looking for a central element to a new smart home setup will get a lot of joy from the Echo Show 10 — it's ready to work at the heart of any ZigBee or Matter smart home system, meaning it’ll work with hundreds of connected devices with minimal configuration.

At its RRP it’s already a steep saving over the cost of a HomePod 2. But throw in a $50 discount and it’s an absolute bargain.

Blink has established itself as a great, low-cost smart home solution for pretty much anyone with an Amazon Echo speaker hanging around their house and that means it's pretty much applicable to everyone on earth at this point.

Packed with a ton of features for such a small and affordable smart camera, it's a great option for anyone who wants to build a smart home security solution without breaking the bank.

With Amazon Prime Day just a day away, you can now save $160 (a whopping 62%) on the original price of a 3-pack of the Blink Outdoor 4, reduced from $259 to $99 on Amazon right now. 

$160 off a 3-pack of the Blink Outdoor 4 security camera

• Blink Outdoor 4 3-pack deals: Amazon | Best Buy

The Blink Outdoor 4 is the latest generation of the company's wire-free smart security camera. The camera offers a 1080p HD live view, infrared night vision, enhanced motion detection, and two-way audio so you can yell at those kids on your lawn. Of course, since Amazon owns Blink, the camera works with Alexa. You can use the assistant to check out a live view or arm and disarm your camera.

Each camera is powered off two AA batteries. Even more impressive and depending on how often you use the camera of course, those two batteries can provide you with up to 2 years of battery life. If you have a Blink subscription plan, you also get Person Detection and the ability to store clips in the cloud.

The 3-pack of the Blink Outdoor 4 includes three Outdoor 4 cameras, one Sync Module 2, six AA lithium metal batteries, three mounting kits, one USB cable, and one power adapter.

Apple has today unveiled a new HomePod mini that will be immediately familiar to those of us who already own one — especially those who own a Space Gray one.

Apple's unveiling of the "HomePod mini in midnight" comes as the company says that it will officially go on sale on Wednesday, July 17 although there was no suggestion that the midnight HomePod mini launch would happen at midnight, unfortunately.

The new speaker appears to be identical to the previous model albeit carrying Apple's new fondness for midnight as a descriptor for its darkest color. We'd suggest that existing owners probably won't need to rush out to upgrade, that's for sure, but it's possible that photos of the new color don't do it justice but we'll need to see the new and old models side-by-side to confirm that.

You look ... familiar

Apple's stealth update by press release matches the stealthy changes that appear to be going on here. On the inside, the new HomePod mini matches those already on sale in other colors including the same Apple S5 chip and speaker configuration. "At just 3.3 inches tall, HomePod mini offers big sound in an impressively compact design," Apple says, adding that with "a seamless, acoustically transparent mesh exterior and a backlit touch surface that illuminates from edge to edge, HomePod mini is a stunning smart speaker that complements any space."

The new color joins the existing yellow, orange, blue, and white options and will retail for the same $99 this Wednesday. It'll initially launch in the U.S., Canada, China mainland, Singapore, and 28 other countries and regions.

More from iMore

• I turned my HiFi system into a very expensive HomePod – but there's a catch
• How to rename your HomePod (and the room it's in)
• How to play ambient sleep sounds on your HomePod or HomePod mini

New code uncovered in Apple’s latest tvOS 18 beta has revealed that Apple is hiding a secret touchscreen interface that could point to Apple’s rumored HomePod with a display. 

9to5Mac has revealed that Apple’s new tvOS interface is dubbed “PlasterBoard”, and features “some core interface elements” of a new tvOS interface, replete with support for use with a touchscreen. Such elements include a Lock Screen with a passcode keypad you’d find on iPhone and iPad. 

“Code and how the interface behaves strongly suggest that it was made for touchscreens and not for regular TVs,” the report postulates, noting that there’s currently no option to lock Apple TV with a passcode, a feature that would only make sense for a more personal device.

Touschreen HomePod incoming 

While we can’t guarantee what this tvOS interface points to, both Apple TV and HomePod share the same OS architecture, and given burgeoning rumors of a HomePod featuring a display, the link seems too good to be true. 

Just last week a mysterious Apple ‘Home Accessory’ featuring the iPhone 16’s rumored A18 chip was spotted in Apple’s backend, possibly indicating the device could include support for Apple Intelligence. 

Apple’s HomePod is a tremendous smart speaker, and having owned both generations I wouldn’t be parted with either. However, the prospect of a HomePod that also offers touchscreen capabilities for controlling your smart home, media, or anything else is simply too good to turn down. An A18 chip would give it serious power and could turn Siri into a fully-fledged smart home assistant powered by AI, ready to answer any query. 

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen leaks of this rumored upcoming HomePod upgrade, the device was also spotted in the tvOS 17.4 beta. Reputable insider Mark Gurman says we shouldn’t expect the device for 2025, however. 

If Apple does have a touchscreen HomePod 3 in the works, I’ll be at the front of the queue on launch day.

More from iMore

• I turned my HiFi system into a very expensive HomePod
• HomePod mini: Is Apple's smart speaker worth getting for a dumb home
• Skeptical about HomePod? Me too. Use Apple's return policy to try it

The Philips Hue line is one of the most popular collections of smart lights around, although they definitely aren't the cheapest. Support for HomeKit makes them a solid option for Apple device owners, but some Hue owners are now experiencing a bug that is sure to be pretty annoying.

That bug is causing some Hue bulbs to set their brightness to 100% of their own accord, making it harder for owners to configure them just the way that they like.

Setting the lights to a different brightness doesn't work, unfortunately, but the good news is that Philips Hue light maker Signify is aware of the issue and working on a fix.

What's the Matter?

The Verge reports that Hue confirmed the bug, admitting that a fix could be ready as soon as next week. The issue, it seems, is integration with Matter.

“After extensive analysis, we have identified an interoperability issue with the Matter smarthome standard, in which random temporary radio traffic disruptions are incorrectly recognized as legacy switch power toggles, turning low brightness lights to full brightness,” a Signify spokesperson told The Verge.

It isn't clear exactly what is going on or why this issue is affecting some users rather than others. But Signify does say that users can disable the Hue Bridge's Matter integration temporarily if they want to work around the bug while a fix is being worked on. Thankfully, the company says that the issue only affects “a small percentage of users.”

More from iMore

• I got the new Philips Hue HomeKit lights, and I love them
• Nanoleaf Aurora review: Forget Philips Hue — these panels made me love smart lighting
• Philips Hue Iris review: A cool but costly lamp for your smart home

Maker of all things smart home, Aqara, has today announced the official launch of its brand new Smart Lock U200, which can retrofit any front door with smart home security, fingerprint recognition, Apple home keys, and more. 

The U200 is now available on Amazon in North America (US, Canada) and Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, UK), as well as through select Aqara retailers worldwide. 

It comes with a “hassle-free retrofit design”, so you can upgrade your existing locks, including Euro mortise locks and US deadbolt locks, without getting new keys or modifying your door. Once installed, your front door won’t look out of place in Fort Knox.

Aqara U200: the breakdown 

The U200 supports fingerprint recognition and PIN codes. That means you can access your home with just your fingerprint or a personalized code, the latter being easy to share, of course. 

More importantly for HomeKit adopters and Apple Home users, it supports both, so you can control your front door from your iPhone or using Siri. There’s also support for Apple home key, so you can access your home with just an iPhone or Apple Watch, again with the capacity for sharing among friends and family. 

The U200 also supports Aqara’s NFC key fobs, and of course, a good old-fashioned key in emergencies. The U200 stores data locally and behind encryption, and has protections against hacking as well as a tamper alarm on the keypad. You’ll also get real-time notifications about the status of the lock and your home. 

The U200 isn’t cheap at $269, but it’s a serious bit of kit and one of the most potent HomeKit door locks for the Home app we’ve seen to date. Out of your price range? Or are you looking for a different type of smart home gadget, check out the best Prime Day HomeKit deals instead.

More from iMore

• eufy Smart Lock Touch with fingerprint recognition launching next month
• Don't lock yourself out of your smart home: Always carry a key
• August Smart Lock vs. Smart Lock Pro Which smart lock should you

We're accustomed to Apple Watches saving lives, but the idea of a HomePod or HomePod mini saving a life is something that we don't come across all that often. But thankfully, Apple's smart speaker sprung into action when a kitchen fire had the potential to cause catastrophe.

According to reports a fire started in the kitchen of a home after a "curious" dog inadvertently turned on an oven that happened to have cardboard boxes on it. The result, as you can imagine, was a fiery inferno.

However, an Apple HomePod saved the day after sending a push notification to the homeowners to warn them of the fire which gave them time to put it out before the fire brigade arrived.

Staying alert

A Facebook post by the Colorado Springs Fire Department, first spotted by 9to5Mac, detailed the story by saying that the homeowners were "woken up by their Apple HomePod which sent them a 'High Heat' notice."

However, it's most likely that the HomePod heard the home's fire alarm and alerted the homeowners as a result. The HomePod cannot act as a smoke detector itself but can listen out for the sound of existing smoke detectors in your home and send a push notification to your iPhone if an alarm is heard. You can enable HomePod alarm recognition on any HomePod, HomePod 2, or HomePod mini.

As this instance shows, turning on this feature could well save your home and, potentially, your life.

More from iMore

• I turned my HiFi system into a very expensive HomePod – but there's a catch
• How to rename your HomePod (and the room it's in)
• HomePod: The ultimate guide

Homekit, Apple’s own smart home standard, is great but can be pretty limiting. There’s nothing worse than shelling out hundreds on some new smart device, only to find out it doesn’t work with everything else you have. Without compatibility with Homekit, you have to get a new hub for the specific devices you buy and will have even more to keep track of. For this reason, despite the pain of getting the right devices, it is worth making sure your home security systems are Homekit compatible. With Amazon Prime Day set to kick off from July 16 to July 17, now is the perfect time to get that order ready. 

If you struggle to spot the difference between a eufy or Blink and Aqara or Ultraloq, here are the best Homekit-compatible smart home security options we recommend keeping an eye on as Prime Day arrives. 

A smarter home

There have long been rumors that Apple is working on a new smart home device that would be a cross between the HomePod and the Apple TV, but so far Apple is yet to confirm its existence. Now, a new leak appears to have done it anyway.

According to that leak, Apple is currently working on a device that has the model identifier "HomeAccessory17,1." That identifier does not currently exist and what's more, there is no such device called "HomeAccessory" anywhere in Apple's current lineup. The HomePod uses the "AudioAccessory" identifier, however.

The new reference could suggest that Apple is getting ready to launch a whole new type of device, but when that could happen is far from clear.

HomeAccessory17,1

The news was shared by MacRumors which says it discovered code referencing the device on Apple's backend, suggesting that it is not yet ready for public consumption.

However, perhaps the most interesting part of the leak is the suggestion that this mystery device could use that A18 chip, silicon that is also expected to power the iPhone 16 later this year. If so, we could see this device sport Apple Intelligence – a feature that won't be coming to existing HomePod hardware.

"Interestingly, the 17,1 in the identifier name suggests that this device may receive Apple's upcoming A18 chip, which will be used in all four iPhone 16 models later this year," the report notes. "With the A18 chip, the HomeAccessory device would have the power for Apple Intelligence."

If Apple really is reading a new smart home device we could see it debut in September around the same time that new iPhones and Apple Watches are also expected to break cover.

More from iMore

• I turned my HiFi system into a very expensive HomePod – but there's a catch
• How to rename your HomePod (and the room it's in)
• Apple HomePod 2: Everything you need to know

The smart home is one of the most useful and exciting ways to turn tech to your advantage, yet getting started can be daunting. Apple lists 22 different categories of smart home products on its website, and nearly all of them are interoperable. That means with the right combination of products you can automate your home beyond all reasonable expectations. Want a sprinkler that comes on every time you open the window? Easy. Need speakers that start playing every time the garage door gets opened? No problem. But what if you’re just starting your smart home for the first time?

If you’re about to embark on the journey of building your smart home and you’ve no idea where to start, where should you look? Ideally, you want good, reliable smart products that are going to make a tangible difference to your home (so you can actually enjoy the benefits of smart home tech and automation) without breaking the bank or putting you off the idea because they’re too complex. 

With that in mind, I reckon that there are maybe four perfect gateway smart home devices that you can pick up to get you started. Before you know it, you’ll have that smart home bug for good, but we all have to start somewhere. Here are my top picks.

•  Smart home deals: Best Buy | Walmart | Amazon 

 Smart plugs

A smart plug is possibly the simplest way to start your smart home, but that doesn’t mean they’re not incredibly useful. A smart plug can make any “dumb” electronic device smart. A smart plug simply plugs into your wall socket and can be switched on and off through your smart home app of choice. On Apple Home via HomeKit, that means using a quick tap in the Home app or a Home Screen widget, or even a command via Siri. Smart plugs generally come with two settings, on or off. They can be used for a variety of different purposes. For example, you could plug in a regular light or lamp using a smart plug so that you can switch it on or off remotely. Or, you could use it to control power to a hard-to-reach appliance. Smart plugs can also be used for peace of mind, controlling items like hair straighteners or curling tongs so you don’t have to worry about leaving the house having left them on. Any smart plug worth its salt will even provide you with energy readings so you can see how much energy an appliance uses, and how much you save switching it off as a result. 

With Amazon Prime Day fast approaching, you can score two meross mini Smart Plugs for just $22.99, meaning they’re not even 12 bucks a pop. Each comes with Wi-Fi connectivity, HomeKit support, and features such as a timer. You will need a HomePod, Apple TV 4K (or HD), or an iPad to make it work, but otherwise, this is as simple as the smart home gets.

 Smart lights 

Smart lights are quintessentially smart home, and even if you have no interest in smart home tech you’ve probably heard about smart light bulbs and ranges such as Philips Hue. The benefits of smart lights can be summed up as convenience and customization. To start with the latter, any good smart bulb will let you choose from a variety of millions of different colors, letting you light your home to any mood you can think of. While some smart bulbs only come in white, you might as well grab a color option as this is one of the biggest benefits of smart lighting. With enough bulbs, you can start to craft scenes, automations, and more. But for the starter, a smart light is another perfect way to start your smart home. They’re a little more complex than smart plugs, with many offering brightness and color options beyond the simple on/off choice, but decent apps and solid Apple Home app integration ensure that all of this remains straightforward. 

When it comes to convenience, what could be more convenient than controlling your lights with your voice or your smartphone, rather than a switch on the wall like an animal? As with smart plugs, remote control and some very basic automation can ensure you never leave the lights on when you’re out. Heck, you can even use smart lights to feign a resident at home while you’re on vacation or traveling so your house doesn’t look empty. 

We’ve gone with meross again because their smart bulbs are excellent value and work with a host of ecosystems including Apple’s HomeKit. Philips Hue lights are a good alternative, but they’re more expensive and require Philips’ hub as a separate purchase.

 Smart home security camera 

Security might seem like a much too important task to entrust to a smart home ecosystem you’ve no experience using, but there are plenty of options out there that can make a smart home security camera an ideal smart home starter. What’s more, HomeKit security cameras are often introduced to smart homes which otherwise wouldn’t have any secure video whatsoever, so any addition is an improvement. 

To start a smart home, you don’t need a camera for every corner of the house, a hub to connect them all, and a server to store your footage. One camera will do, at least to start with. You can of course opt for an outdoor or an indoor version, depending on your needs, but this TP-Link Tapo 2K is a pretty good bet. As you might expect, it provides the basic functionality of a security camera, with features including night vision, motion tracking, and two-way audio so you get sound as well as visuals. With support for Apple HomeKit, you can access your camera’s live feed at a moment's notice, perfect for keeping an eye on a pet or checking in on a motion alert. The Tapo includes a microSD slot so you can store your footage locally, rather than in the cloud, too.

 Smart doorbell 

Smart video doorbells are possibly some of the most well-known and popular smart home devices. The core concept is very simple, a smart video doorbell combines a doorbell with a camera, giving you a live video feed from your front door whenever someone presses the button. It can be used to issue instructions to delivery drivers, avoid unwanted cold-callers, or advise expectant in-laws that you’ll “just be down in a second.” Different from a smart lock, a doorbell doesn’t give any access or control to the security of your front door, so there’s no risk of accidentally letting someone into your home. Like the other smart home devices here, a smart doorbell shines when you’re not home, because it really means you can answer the door from anywhere in the world, provided you have a mobile data connection. We have to stray away from HomeKit to find a decent deal here but this $37 Kasa number is a great starter point. It comes with a separate chime unit, features 2K resolution, and gives real-time notifications to your phone. You’ll need to hardwire it, so installation is a little more tricky, but once it’s in you’ll never have to worry about battery power. In terms of installation, this one requires a little more effort, but with just a wee bit of tinkering, you’ll have the ultimate front-door concierge in the palm of your hand.  

Henry Hoover and I have a love/hate relationship. I’ve tripped over its wire so many times that I’m ready to look elsewhere. This is why I’ve been looking at robot vacuums as Amazon Prime Day approaches.

Amazon’s sales event takes place on 17-18 July, which gives me enough time to research how a Robot vacuum can help my family, especially when it comes to cleaning up the accidental spills made by our 10-month-old son. The first thing that comes to mind, which Henry cannot do, is the fact that I can automate a Robot Vacuum to map out our home and clean up when we’re out of the house.

Most Robot vacuums return to a dock that empties any collected debris. Some docks even wash the bristles on the vacuum. These features have already made me add a few to my wishlist on Amazon. However, there’s another aspect that’s been driving my research.

At WWDC 2024, Apple announced that Apple Home, the company’s proprietary system that can control smart devices such as cameras and light strips, will add support robot vacuums later this year, through the Matter 1.2 standard. Matter is a type of smart home software that can work with other products, which can then be controlled through the Apple Home app.

Although robot vacuum manufacturers like eufy, Shark, and more haven’t yet confirmed HomeKit support, compatibility should be possible through a firmware update. With this in mind, here are a few more reasons why a robot vacuum could be top of my Prime Day HomeKit wishlist.

Apps

Shark, eufy, and iRobot all have apps you can download from the App Store that let you control your Robot Vacuum from wherever you are. If you leave the house and realize you’re having friends over as soon as you get back, quickly launching the app to activate the vacuum for a quick once-over could be very helpful.

There are other features in these apps as well you can take advantage of. For example, Shark’s app, SharkClean, allows you to locate the vacuum and direct it to specific parts of your home for a quick clean. SharkClean can also estimate how long the vacuuming will take, which is very useful for ensuring the robot has enough battery to complete the task.

Self-Maintenance

A vacuum that self-maintains itself is a big appeal to me, as cleaning out Henry Hoover every fortnight can get messy. This is why I’ve been looking at the eufy X10 Pro. After it finishes vacuuming, it goes into a docking station which cleans out the Robot, ready for its next use. Granted, you still need to empty the dock’s dirt collection after a while, but it’s much easier than taking apart a vacuum like Henry Hoover.

Some can mop as well as vac!

There’s a good chance that your bathroom and kitchen have tiled flooring, and cleaning this type of surface requires some extra effort. Right now I use Henry to initially clean up any dirt, then use a mop to wash away any potential bacteria and keep the floors smelling fresh.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that some Robot vacuum cleaners can also mop! The eufy X10 Pro, for example, has two mop-pads at its base that can press down on carpet and hard-surface floors. These can spin at up to 180 RPM, washing your floors without you having to do it yourself.

One More Thing — HomeKit

As I mentioned above, the big appeal to me is the upcoming HomeKit support for Robot vacuums, which Apple says will arrive later this year. I already control lights and cameras within the Apple Home app with my iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch. Being able to also control a Robot vacuum like the eufy X10 Pro in the future with the app is a big appeal to me.

In the meantime, I’m happy to use the apps that Shark, eufy, and iRobot offer, as I don’t think I can spend much longer with Henry Hoover.

More from iMore

• iFixit rips apart Apple's $2,000 iPhone repair kit so you don't have to 
• The iPhone's iOS 18 beta 2 update is now available to developers
• This is the cheapest way to get an iPad right now

It's now the second day of Amazon Prime Day, and we've got some stunning deals on Homekit devices so that you can save some money if you're looking to ensmarten your home. It doesn't matter if you're just starting out, or whether you're looking to add some new devices to an existing setup — you'll save some money.

There are loads of deals to be found over the last few hours of the sale, from some great prices on smart door locks and doorbells, as well as smart lights and more. Of course, trawling through the many, many deals on Amazon can quickly become a chore — which is why we've made this list, so that you can more easily find exactly what you're looking for. Here are the best HomeKit Prime Day deals.

• Smart home deals: Best Buy | Walmart | Amazon

Prime Day Apple HomeKit deals at a glance

• Meross LED Lights 2-pack | $30.99 $23 at Amazon
• Kasa Smart Plug Mini 4-pack | $49.99 $32.99 at Amazon
• meross Smart Plug Mini 2-pack | $29 $19 at Amazon
• August Wi-Fi Smart Lock (4th Generation) | $229 $155 at Amazon
• Level Bolt Smart Lock | $200 $183 at Amazon
• Eve Light Strip | $79 $52 at Amazon
• Philips Hue White and color A21 | $65 $46 at Amazon
• Eve Aqua Smart water controller | $149 $129 at Amazon

Prime Day HomeKit smart light deals

Prime Day HomeKit smart plug deals

Prime Day HomeKit smart door lock deals

Best Prime Day HomeKit security camera deals

Best Prime Day HomeKit sensor deals

Best Prime Day HomeKit vacuum deals

Vacuums aren't HomeKit enabled just yet but future-proof your smart home by buying one of these Matter-enabled robot vacuums that will work with iOS 18 and the Home app later this year. We don't know for certain if these specific models will be compatible with the Home app but we expect them to be.

Q&A

We’ve all been there — scrambling for our keys at our home’s front door with arms full of shopping bags, babies, pets, rubbish bags, drunken friends. Delete as appropriate, but getting that key into that lock sometimes is harder than it sounds.

At WWDC 2024 Apple announced a new feature for its smart home controlling Home app that might save you some of that hassle. A new ‘hands-free unlock’ option will let the app speak to compatible door locks and, with your permission, automatically unlock them when you’re within six feet of the door. 

Apple is yet to reveal which locks will be compatible with the new feature, but we’d hope it’ll include some of the best HomeKit door locks. The feature will roll out as part of the wider iOS 18 update, expected to land alongside the iPhone 16 in September — though you can download the iOS 18 beta right now if you want to gamble with a potentially buggy pre-release software build.

• Smart home deals: Best Buy | Walmart | Amazon

Guest access for your trusted visitors

That’s not the only new thing coming to the Home app. If you’ve got visitors heading to your Jetsons-like smart home, you’ll soon be able to give them time-limited access to your pad’s security features.

Guests will be able to control locks, garage doors, and security systems with your permission, on either individual event-based occasions, or as part of an ongoing schedule — perfect if you have regular house visitors like cleaners, dog walkers, or babysitters.

A few smaller updates round out the Home app’s new feature set, including energy monitoring with some utility companies, starting with Pacific Gas & Electric Company in California, robot vacuum cleaner control complete with Siri voice command activation, and the ability to activate Spatial Audio features on third-party speakers with using AirPlay to stream compatible music and movie soundtracks to those devices. 

Looking for a great HomeKit lock? Don't miss out on the Level Lock+ :

More from iMore

• The era of Apple Intelligence is here — Apple AI unveiled at WWDC 2024
• ChatGPT 4.0 is coming to iPhone, iPad, and Mac free with iOS 18 and beyond
• Here's everything Apple Intelligence can do on iPhone, iPad, and Mac
• Apple unveils iOS 18 at WWDC 2024
• watchOS 11 officially revealed at WWDC 2024
• Apple's tvOS 18 arrives for Apple TV — new features for AirPods and Home coming soon
• visionOS 2 announced at WWDC 2024 — Apple Vision Pro's first major software update
• Apple Vision Pro goes international this month - here's where you'll be able to buy it
• iOS 18 offers the "biggest redesign" for the iPhone Photos app - here's what's new
• WWDC 2024 brings our first look at Severance Season 2
• macOS 15 is macOS Sequoia, unveiled at WWDC 2024
• iPadOS 18 announced at WWDC 2024 — with all of iOS 18's greatest hits in tow
• AT LAST: Apple adds support for RCS Messaging

Apple's WWDC keynote revealed macOS Sequoia, iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, but its other services were hardly left in the cold.

While the company opened with a look at Severance Season 2 amongst other original projects for Apple TV Plus, the app itself is getting some updates with convenience and accessibility in mind.

While the new InSight feature to identify actors, characters and music on the show you're watching is a lot like Amazon's X-Ray feature, you'll be able to enjoy an improved Enhance Dialogue option to improve vocal clarity on Apple TV 4K.

"In addition to HomePod speakers, users can now enjoy Enhance Dialogue when listening through built-in TV or HDMI-connected speakers, AirPods, and other Bluetooth-connected devices, and when playing supported content on iPhone and iPad," an Apple press release explains.

Apple wants to control your robots

While we've heard that Apple is considering its own robots for the future, the company will settle for helping you control yours for the time being.

"Robot vacuum cleaners are now compatible with the Home app, so they can participate in automations and scenes, and can be activated by a user’s voice using Siri", the press release explains.

The Home app will also provide additional information about electricity usage, too.

"The Home app also makes it easier for users to access, understand, and make more informed decisions about their home electricity use in partnership with leading utilities, beginning with Pacific Gas & Electric Company in California."

"Eligible users can easily view their electricity usage in the Home app’s Energy category when they connect their utility account."

Given some "smart meters" can be unreliable at best, it's interesting to see Apple helping users understand their utility bills a little more.

We're covering the WWDC 2024 event as it happens. Follow WWDC 2024 LIVE here. Or check out our roundups for all the latest on the newly announced iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15, watchOS 11, visionOS 2, and Apple Intelligence.

If you’re looking for the perfect central piece of an Apple-based smart home, then you need look no further than a HomePod. They sound good, look good, and even when compared to other smart speakers, they’re priced reasonably.

The trouble is that you could never call them cheap — and even worse, they’re very rarely reduced. Luckily, in its two-day Apple sale, Best Buy has seen fit to reduce the prices of both HomePod models, and while they might not seem like the biggest price drops, they are welcome savings on what are some of Apple’s most underrated products.

HomePod mini and HomePod 2 reduced

• Smart speaker deals: Best Buy | Walmart | Amazon 

HomePods are wonderful devices, bringing some top-quality sound along with a great base for an Apple Home setup. Smart voice-activated features come from Siri, and you stream hi-res tracks from Apple Music for higher quality music than you’ll find in other smart speakers.

These prices won’t stick around forever either — this Best Buy Apple sale is only going to be around until June 9. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the sale while it's still live, there are some great savings on other Apple devices.

When the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max launched last year, FCC filings indicated the new phones had a Thread radio inside.

It was a curious reveal (and one that remains seemingly innate, at least for now), but in many ways, no one thought more of it, especially since Apple said it was for "opening up future opportunities for Home app integrations” that never really came to pass.

Thread is the primary wireless protocol for Matter, the unified smart home standard that Apple, and other tech giants like Google, have been working toward to improve compatibility across smart home accessories.

Now, though, it appears Thread has found its way into more Apple devices.

Thread radio found in multiple Apple devices

As spotted by The Verge, the FCC has seemingly confirmed that Thread radios have been tested inside the latest iPad Pro, the M2 iPad Air, the M3 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, and the M3 iMac.

But why? Well, it's hard to say right now (Apple hasn't responded to The Verge's request for comment), but with WWDC 24 less than a week away, we may find out then.

We've long expected an iPad that can act as a home hub, but Apple may look to go above and beyond by putting more smart home functionality on the Mac, too. While both platforms currently have access to the Home app, having a Thread radio onboard would assist with interfacing more directly with your home's gadgets.

More from iMore

• Apple just dropped another hint at iOS 18's massive Siri upgrade — WWDC 24 logo latest sign of the change we've all been waiting for
• Here are the exact dimensions we expect for each model in the iPhone 16 series
• This could be the first app store with a solution to Apple's hated Core Technology Fee
  

Controlling your HomeKit accessories via the Home app or with your voice with Siri is truly magical. However, that magic can quickly turn to frustration if your accessory suddenly comes down with a case of the dreaded No Response error. The No Response status not only means that you lose the ability to control your accessories but also impacts automation and scenes, which can disrupt a home.

Since HomeKit relies on various factors and involves multiple devices, tracking down an exact fix for the No Response issue can be tricky. Sometimes it's a spotty wireless connection; the next day, it could be an issue with the Home app requiring a reboot. Don't worry; with a little patience, you can bring your accessory back to life — just follow the steps below to get started.

First things first

Before we dive into the deep stuff, there are a few simple settings that you should check on your iOS device. These include ensuring that your device is connected to your Wi-Fi network at home and checking to see if Bluetooth is on. Check out our guide: How to turn off WiFi or Bluetooth on iPhone and iPad if you need help locating these settings.

Next, make sure that your iPhone is signed into your iCloud account. You can do this by simply going into the Settings app and checking to see if your name is at the top. If it isn't, our guide: How to set up and customize iCloud on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac will steer you in the right direction.

Finally, ensure that you are running the latest version of iOS, iPadOS, or macOS, as well as tvOS on your HomeKit hub. HomeKit hubs include the Apple TV, Apple TV 4K, HomePod, and HomePod mini.

On iPhone and iPad, updating is just a few taps away in the Settings app. For a step-by-step walkthrough, the guide: How to update your iPhone and iPad will get you up to date in no time.

For the Mac, you can check out the process by looking at How to download and install macOS on your Mac. We also have the guides: How to download and install tvOS on your Apple TV and How to install software updates for your HomePod.

Narrow it down

Sometimes, a HomeKit accessory may show the No Response message even though it is connected to your home network. To narrow it down to either an accessory issue or a Home app issue, you can check the device-specific app for your accessory to see if you can control it from there. If you can, then you can turn your attention to troubleshooting HomeKit.

Suppose your accessory is available in another HomeKit app. In that case, you can check for firmware updates that may address the problem or refer to HomeKit-specific steps provided by the manufacturer.

Home or away

If your HomeKit accessory only shows No Response when you are not home, you may need a HomeKit hub. HomeKit hubs bridge the gap between the accessory and the internet, allowing you to access your gear while out and about while also letting you create scenes and automation.

There are currently three HomeKit hubs available: the Apple TV (4th generation or later), HomePod, and HomePod mini. HomeKit hubs, even on standby, will handle all of the connections in the background automatically when you sign into your iCloud account during the setup process for the device.

If you already have one of these devices in your home, you can check their HomeKit status in the Home app on iOS. An active HomeKit hub will be displayed as Connected in the Home app, and if you have other hubs in the home, they will show as Standby. 

If your hub isn't showing Connected or displayed at all, you will have to enable it on that specific device. As you might have guessed, we have a guide for that, too: How to make your Apple TV or HomePod a HomeKit hub.

Reboot all the things

As with most problems, sometimes a simple reboot is all it takes to get things back up and running. For HomeKit troubleshooting, rebooting your HomeKit hub, iOS device, and even the accessory itself is one of the quickest and easiest ways to make an unresponsive accessory available again.

We suggest starting with your iPhone and iPad. Follow the steps outlined in the guide How to reboot or reset your iPhone and iPad if you need help.

Rebooting a HomeKit accessory usually requires unplugging it from the wall or removing its batteries. You can also use the associated app if it is connected to your home network and if the app can see it.

Rebooting an Apple TV requires unplugging it, using the on-device menus, or using a combination of buttons on the Siri remote. Here's How to restart or put your Apple TV to sleep with the Siri Remote.

For the HomePod, you can simply unplug it or use the Home app. Restarting it via the Home app can be a little dangerous, though, as you will be presented with options to restart or reset the HomePod, so make sure that you pay attention to the steps outlined in the guide How to restart or reset your HomePod or HomePod mini.

Go the distance

Most HomeKit accessories on the market use wireless radios to communicate with your home network. Common wireless types are Wi-Fi, Thread Bluetooth, ZigBee, and RF, all of which are limited in their maximum range. If you have just a single accessory that comes and goes, it may be a victim of a spotty signal.

Fixing the issue can be as simple as moving the accessory to a different location or relocating your HomeKit hub. There are a few other tools that you can use to help diagnose an accessory's connection, most of which you may already have.

For Wi-Fi connections, check the app or web portal you use to manage your router. Most modern routers will display signal strength as an easy-to-read icon or as a description like Excellent. Some routers will show strength in numerical forms, such as -50 dBm, and the lower the number, the better your signal is. If your signal is at or above -70 dBm, you may experience connectivity issues.

Consider looking into the best Mesh Wi-Fi router kits if your signal isn't strong and you cannot move your accessories, hub, or router. These routers have multiple access points spread throughout the home to extend range, and some also support HomeKit Secure Router features.

For Bluetooth and Thread accessories, you will likely need a third-party HomeKit app to check signal strength. We recommend the HomeScan for HomeKit app for Bluetooth devices, as it is tailored for HomeKit, and comes with a handy companion Apple Watch app that makes diagnosing a connection even more straightforward.

The HomeScan app will display strength in numerical form, and just like with Wi-Fi connections, a signal around -70 dBm or above can cause inconsistent performance. If you have a HomeKit hub, you will need to ensure that you measure strength in relation to where your HomeKit hub is. You can do this by setting your iPhone on or near your Apple TV, or HomePod, then using the Apple Watch while standing near your HomeKit accessory.

Currently, Thread accessory status is limited to basic information only in apps like Eve for HomeKit. In the Eve for HomeKit app, you can see the Transport status (whether or not it is connected via Thread or Bluetooth) and you can see signal strength indicated in terms such as Excellent.

ZigBee and RF accessories communicate to a dedicated hub, and as such, signal strength, if available, will be reported through the accompanying app. The most popular brand that uses ZigBee is Philips Hue, which uses it for its line of light bulbs and lamps, and for RF, Lutron's Caseta line is one of the most well-known.

In most cases, these types of accessories utilize a form of mesh networking that extends coverage in the home by allowing accessories to connect to one another. However, these radios are generally low power, meaning they have a shorter range and are affected by walls and materials within the home. 

If you cannot move your accessories or the dedicated hub, adding a brand-specific range extender or another accessory in between may help. You can also try changing the hub's channel that it operates on if the manufacturer's app supports it.

The nuclear option

If all else fails, resetting your HomeKit accessory or HomeKit home may be the only solution. When resetting an accessory, it will revert to the original settings, removing it from HomeKit and your home network. This process varies, but typical methods include holding a button on the device for a few seconds or removing it from the manufacturer's app. Once reset, you will need to add it to your network by following our guide on How to set up your HomeKit accessories.

Resetting your HomeKit home should be the last step you attempt, as it will remove the problematic accessory and all of your accessories, scenes, and automation. Since there is no backup and restore process provided by the Home app, this option means that you will need to set up everything again, starting from scratch, which is the most time-consuming. Some third-party apps, like Controller for HomeKit, can back up your automation and scenes but will not restore your accessories. If you want to go to this extreme, see our guide on How to remove a home from the Home app.

No more No Response

As you can see, there are quite a few options that you can take to combat the No Response message in the Home app — so don't give up hope! Whether it is rebooting your HomeKit hub, adjusting the distance between devices, or a simple reset, you can solve your frustrations — if you have the patience. Once you solve the issue, you will be back to living that sweet, smart home life with all of the best HomeKit accessories.

Smart home company Aqara has announced its latest smart lock, dubbed the Smart Lock U50. The new addition to the lineup includes everything an iPhone and Apple Watch owner could want including HomeKit support as well as compatibility with Apple's Home Key technology.

The new lock comes in any color you like... so long as it's black... and includes a built-in keypad so that you can give people access to your home without the need for them to use your iPhone or, heaven forbid, an actual key.

Other features of note include remote control capabilities via an app and support for a Matter as well as Google Home, Alexa, and IFTTT.

A smarter lock

The big feature for most people reading this will of course be HomeKit support coupled with support for Apple Home Key. With that feature enabled simply tapping the lock with an iPhone or an Apple Watch is enough to lock or unlock the door. No more fiddling with keys when you have your hands full.

Those who prefer to use a passcode can do just that thanks to the built-in keypad and security fans will like that the U50 can automatically lock the door when it closes, too.

The whole thing is powered by four AA batteries which can run for up to six months between charges while a USB port offers emergency charging should the need arise.

If that all sounds like the makings of your new smart lock, the U50 can be ordered today. It usually sells for $149.99 but there's a 20% discount available when you enter the code USU50DTP.

More from iMore

• Aqara unveils new Smart Door lock with Apple Home Key support
• The first smart lock with Home Key support just launched in Apple Stores
• Schlage puts your keys into the Wallet app with a new HomeKit smart lock

Denon, one of the world’s biggest audio brands, has quietly added Siri support to some of its smart speakers, but there’s a catch.

It has been three years since ecobee added Siri support to its smart thermostat, the last time a company brought Apple’s virtual assistant to a third-party smart home product. But now, Denon’s wireless speakers and sound bar will be able to respond to “Hey, Siri”.

Adding Siri to some of the best Bluetooth speakers on the market like the Denon Home Series 150, 250, 350, and Soundbar 550 seems like a great first step before the expected Apple AI overhaul at WWDC in June.

Want to use Siri on one of your Denon smart speakers? You’ll need a HomePod too. Just like ecobee’s SmartThermostat, the third-party device works as an extension of your HomePod or HomePod mini rather than a standalone Siri-powered device. 

While the addition is nice for Denon owners who also happen to have a HomePod in their homes (we don’t expect the majority to own both), for Denon speaker owners who don't have a homepod to hand, the update won't serve any purpose.

It’s also a puzzling time to add compatibility but maybe Denon knows something we don’t and the upcoming Siri updates we expect to see at WWDC are that good that third-party products want to get on board with it.

Siri's future?

With iOS 18 on the horizon, rumors of a new HomePod with a screen, and Apple AI an inevitable arrival, there’s a lot to be excited about in the world of Apple Home — but we’re not quite sure yet if Denon’s software update is a sign of things to come or just a box-ticking exercise for the few who happen to own Apple’s smart home speaker alongside the company’s offerings.

More from iMore

• New iOS 18 Safari browsing assistant feature tipped as Apple's AI plans come into focus
• New iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 compatibility leak claims some devices are going to miss out this time around
• iOS 18 could offer more iPhone Home Screen customization than ever before

A portable smart lamp works for a certain type of person. Given it needs to be constantly recharged, you could opt to simply leave it plugged into a single area but then you aren’t using the lamp for its full purpose. You need to be someone who cares about the ambiance of your room and is willing to not only commit the money upfront for it but wants to change the lamp’s spot for just a few hours at a time. 

Since testing out Nanoleaf, Philips, and Govee smart lights, I’ve become that type of person more and the Umbra Cono has fit into my life surprisingly well. However, this smart lamp is noticeably not the main event in a room and you pay an awful lot for a side act.

Nanoleaf Umbra Cono smart lamp review: Price and Availability

The Umbra Cono portable smart lamp can be purchased for $95 at Nanoleaf or Umbra websites. There is no fluctuation between the two prices and I haven’t seen a sale on both sites since I started monitoring them — though Umbra occasionally offers 10% off your first order. The latter also offers free shipping for shops over $75, whereas the former charges $9.99 for shipping. 

Curiously, buying the Nanoleaf Umbra Cono in the UK will cost you £110, making it a significantly more expensive item there. 

Nanoleaf Umbra Cono smart lamp review: What's good?

Shaped like a spotlight on top of an “x”, the Umbra Cono smart lamp is one of the strangest lamps I’ve seen. It’s super light and small at 5.5 inches long, 5.5 inches wide, and 5.35 inches high, meaning you can place it almost anywhere around a room. That unique look has functionality to it too as it can be held easily from the bottom or even hooked onto a frame to hang. The pressure and weight of the body both push the lamp down and the “x” shape at the bottom can essentially lock it in. The lamp doesn’t have a specific mechanism for doing so, which left me worried it may fall but it managed to stay upright with no hassle until the battery ran out. 

Though the Nanoleaf website says the lamp gets “up to 4 hours when not plugged into a power supply” I found the lamp regularly getting more than that, with it occasionally going for up to 6 hours at a time. Keep in mind that you’ll need to regularly charge the lamp if you don’t want to keep it constantly plugged in. Yet the battery life is pretty decent for a lamp that will mostly stay in the same spot. I found myself keeping it plugged in on normal evenings, and changing its position when I was hosting friends, for a little more ambiance. This could make for a great dorm decoration, if you are having a few friends over.

Being Matter-compatible, the Umbra Cono can be controlled manually from your best iPhone or the best HomeKit hubs. This means you can set schedules, enable voice controls, and set a list of your favorite colors remotely. If you don’t have a hub or other HomeKit device, Nanoleaf has its own app that can give you customizable color palettes customize, dynamic scenes with custom colors and circadian lighting, which means your lamp can brighten up or become dim at certain times of the day. 

Nanoleaf Umbra Cono smart lamp review: What's not so good?

Starting with getting the lamp working, I am not a fan of the button on the side that turns it on. It’s indented like a traditional button, which makes you think you can press it down but applying pressure does not follow with that satisfying click you might expect. Instead, it uses rather finicky touch controls to turn on and change lights. You can get past this by connecting it to your iPhone but it doesn’t feel quite as luxurious as the look and that price point. 

On the subject of price, this smart lamp is very expensive for what’s mostly an additive light. The max brightness isn’t quite light enough to substitute more traditional lighting so I pair it with my Nanoleaf Lines and Shapes to make my living room cosier in the evenings. For this, that price is a rather steep one. 

Nanoleaf Umbra Cono smart lamp review: Competition

For $5 cheaper, you can pick up the Philips Hue Go, which doesn’t look quite as luxurious and can’t be propped up and hung from things the same way, but comes with a much bigger battery life and lighter max brightness. If you don’t mind missing out on the Cono’s iconic look, this is a smarter choice. 

However, if you just want a smart lamp for your room and only occasionally want to move it around, Govee has a whole host of smart lamps for a similar price to the Cono that are brighter and stand out more in a room. If you want something that’s the centerpiece of your lighting and not just an addition, these are a great choice. 

Should you buy it?

Nanoleaf Umbra Cono smart lamp review: Verdict

The Nanoleaf Umbra Cono smart lamp is a very luxurious addition to a room. It looks great, adds a very warm glow to a space, and has a battery life long enough to last an evening with your friends. Although it is rather pricey and not quite as bright as I would have liked — but it’s luxurious nonetheless. 

Have you been waiting to pick up the HomePod for that long-rumored version with a display? If so, a recent HomePod 3 leak might just tempt you to wait a little longer.

Kosutami, a reputable leaker who previously showed off the FineWoven band before its official release, has leaked what appears to be the top of the HomePod 3’s display. It looks very glossy and incredibly different from previous HomePod models. Where previous models have a short clean circle with the Siri symbol inside, this display model looks different with small notches wrapping around the side and a larger display.

Though Kosutami has accurately leaked Apple products before, it’s important to note that, until we see this design officially unveiled, we can’t assume it is true. However, if it is, it’s a big upgrade that could allow HomePods to do some very cool things. To compare its potential to its competitors, Amazon’s Echo Show 10 is a home device with a display that can be used to listen to music, set timers, read news, and even watch the best shows on Apple TV Plus. We could see the HomePod 3 offering many of the same features.

What else do we know about the HomePod 3?

We don’t have an official report or leak yet on the release date of the HomePod 3 but WWDC 2024 is just around the corner so we could always hope to see it there. If so, this could mean a potential release in either September, alongside the iPhone 16, or in early 2025. This would mean a launch two years after the HomePod 2. Given the display is a huge upgrade, we could also see Apple’s home device get a price bump from the HomePod 2’s $299.

Though the display is what we expect to be the biggest change for the HomePod 3, it is worth noting that Apple AI is currently in development and we might even see a little bit of how AI will affect devices later this year. With this in mind, Apple is said to be improving its Siri capabilities substantially. To account for this, the Homepod 3 may need a Neural Engine upgrade like the iPhone 15 and Apple Watch Series 9 received. These are the best iPhones and best Apple Watchs respectively right now, and this is partially down to those neural changes. The HomePod 3 will likely be a much more capable device and not just because of hardware upgrades.

More from iMore

• HomePod mini: Is Apple's smart speaker worth getting for a dumb home?
• Why I'm getting the HomePod
• Skeptical about HomePod? Me too. Use Apple's return policy to try it in your home

One of the most annoying parts about fitting a smart lock to your front door is how you often have to replace all of your existing hardware to make it work. A new retrofit from Yale, however, just made things a whole lot easier.

Rather than having to replace all your existing hardware, the new Yale Approach lock just fixes to the deadbolt you’ve already got. It avoids the classically massive lock that many smart locks feature as well, so you can keep the cleaner look of your door.

There is some bad news, however, for us Apple Home users. It won’t support the Apple smart home standard on launch, with support only coming later this year with the introduction of Matter-over-Thread.

Simple security

The Yale Approach is designed to be as simple as possible, in all of its aspects. Not only is it simple to fit to your door, it's also simple to use. It connects to the Yale Access app, and then lets you configure various aspects of the locking of your door, including setting up auto lock and unlocking when you’re close to your door.

You can combine the lock with the Yale Keypad as well, so that you can add some extra security in the form of an access code. The keypad can store up to 250 codes, so you can set temporary passcodes for visitors.

It’s not all doom and gloom for Apple users either. While it won’t support the Apple Home standard at launch, Yale says that there will be an update to the lock later this year which will add support for Matter-over-Thread, which will also let you connect the lock to your Apple Home setup. Until then you can still connect the lock to the Yale Access app on your iPhone.

The Yale Approach is available now for $129, and the Yale Keypad can be found for $69 at the Yale website. We’ll be sure to test the lock when we get our hands on it to find out if it ranks among the best smart locks for Apple Home.

More from iMore

• CES: the new August Wi-Fi Smart Lock makes its debut
• Will the August Smart Lock Pro work with my door?
• This Matter-over-Thread smart lock is the first with a fingerprint reader

The HomePod 3 is expected to make some pretty radical improvements over the last model, yet we haven't received much official information yet. Just a few months ago, eagle-eyed users spotted code in tvOS 17.4's third beta, alluding to the new device and suggesting the screen-laden third smart speaker is on its way.

The infamous HomePod with a screen has been in development for three years now, yet it skipped the HomePod 2 early last year. The HomePod 3 is not only said to receive this screen but other advancements in technology that could one day combine with Apple AI to make the smart device so much smarter. Apple has been reported to be combining FaceTime, Apple TV, and HomePod into a single device way back in 2022, and fans are hoping Apple's next Home Pod will be the one to do it. Recent reports have even shown off what the long-awaited display will look like. 

Here is everything we know about the Apple HomePod 3 right now. 

HomePod 3: The headlines

What is it? A HomePod smart speaker, potentially with a screen and an AI Siri upgrade, or maybe even a new entry in an all-new line of home robotics products.

When can we expect it? September/October is possible should a WWDC 2024 reveal happen. But realistically, this could be into next year or beyond.

Key upgrades? An alleged screen capable of FaceTime and video display, Apple TV integration and Siri AI upgrades.

HomePod 3: Expected release date

The million-dollar question is when will we see HomePod 3 in the flesh. Provided there is some sort of announcement about it at WWDC 2024, it's possible that we could see a release as early as September/October 2024, but the smart money is on a release in the early part of 2025 — two years on from the release of HomePod 2.

HomePod 3: Design

Integrating a display into the current HomePod presents some design problems. When faced with the same challenge of adding a screen to what is essentially a big speaker Amazon has adopted a few different designs. The model 8 of the Show looks more like an iPad designed to stand on a desk, but we don't think that Apple would want to go in this direction as it already has the iPad line. 

Instead, a look at the Echo Show 10 gives us a good example of a product that still looks very much like a speaker, but has an integrated screen whose position can be adjusted by the user. And if Apple's robotic ambitions are set to be believed, the display could sit at the end of a robot arm that tracks your head position, so it's always looking directly at you as you move around the room. The overall effect would not be unlike the old angle-poised G3 iMac, which was a notable design hit from Apple's past.

Alternatively, we could imagine a HomePod 3 looking like a speaker with a built-in display that occupies the area where the colored Siri lights currently swirl on the existing HomePod mini and HomePod 2, and a camera perhaps integrated into the base. This would be closest to the most recent reports.

We'd love it if the HomePod line eventually incorporates a robot that follows you around your home, tending to your every need. Taking inspiration from the existing Roomba-type robots that clean your home, a fully featured home robot could look like anything from a robot pet (think AIBO, Sony's robotic puppy) to something that looks more like R2-D2 or even C3-PO, from Star Wars. We're stretching into the realms of science fiction here, but the future could be nearer than you think. Recent rumors suggest Apple is now heavily investing in robotics alongside its AI ambitions, following the shuttering of its autonomous car division.

The lack of an official Apple release hasn't stopped people from dreaming up some HomePod 3 concepts they'd love to see. In 2022, the Swiss website Handy Abovergleich produced some concept designs for an integrated Apple TV and HomePod. More recently, designer Justin Latham has gone in the other direction and produced a HomePod Nano design, that is smaller and more like an alarm clock. 

HomePod 3: Price

HomePod 2 from Apple is $299 on the Apple store, while HomePod mini is $99. If the HomePod 3 features a screen then we'd hope that the price point of $299 could be maintained, especially considering that the Echo Show 10, with a screen, is only $249 on Amazon.com. But considering the potential for this to eat some of the iPad line-up's lunch, be ready to spend north of $500 for any device that essentially combines an iPad and HomePod in one unit.

HomePod 3: Connecting to your Smart Home

While Apple has made some inroads into the smart home market with HomeKit and the Home app, it certainly hasn't cracked it yet. While you can now use an Apple TV as a hub to control your smart home devices, and also the existing HomePod and HomePod mini, it certainly feels like Apple could do with a device that looks more and acts more like a central hub from which to control your smart home devices with ease. A HomePod with a dedicated screen would fit that bill perfectly, enabling you to access a security camera or choose which smart lights to turn on or off.

As much as Apple users hate to admit it, the Alexa/Siri war is being won by Amazon right now. Alexa is just better at acting like a virtual assistant, and Amazon and Google devices tend to be cheaper. Apple could still win out here though, because we get the feeling nobody really trusts Alexa to not analyze your data to try to sell you things. People respect Apple's greater degree of security and privacy, not to mention Apple's seamless integration between devices. HomePod 3 could be the device that convinces people that it's safe to enter the smart home market.

HomePod 3: Siri gets serious with AI

Finally, consider what an AI boost to Siri could mean for HomePod 3. We already know that Apple has been generating its own Apple GPT chatbots for use within the company, and we're holding out great hopes for an AI boost to Siri in iOS18 at this year's WWDC. 

Conversing with Siri on HomePod 3 and having it talk back to you would be a game changer. Just imagine getting answers to your questions instead of the usual, "here's what I found on the web" response. This would completely change your concept of searching on the web, and it could be that you wouldn't actually need Google anymore for simple answers to simple questions.

The possibilities of merging AI with your smart home could be thrilling. Could you ask your fridge light to blink out the words to the national anthem in Morse code? Maybe. Or perhaps when you ask HomePod 3 to open the garage doors it will respond with a chilling, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that".

More from iMore

• I turned my HiFi system into a very expensive HomePod
• Two HomePod minis vs HomePod 2 ultimate showdown
• HomePod 2 review: Ignore the noise — it's brilliant

Personal robotics are eternally on the brink of being ‘the next big thing’ — and eternally out of reach of reality, too.

Ever since the ‘Space Race’ era of 1950s technological optimism, sci-fi fans (if not every imaginative child that’s ever lived) have dreamed of having their own personal robot around the house, whether that’s to go on some big adventure with, or more prosaically to help with the chores.

C-3PO, Wall-E, the whole Transformers gang — everyone’s got a favorite. 

It’s an ideal intrinsically linked to the rise of artificial intelligence, the current tech buzz topic that looks genuinely set to transform the way we live, with pop-culture connotations both positive and negative when robotics and AI combine. On the one hand, R2-D2 pretty much single-handedly saves the universe in the Star Wars films (seriously, go back and watch how many times his little AI brain saves the day). On the other hand, Terminators, Skynet, nuclear apocalypse, and the end of the world. Gulp.

Decades of progress in robotics are finally arriving at a point of critical advancement in AI, to the point where they could revolutionize each other. We’ve seen the wobbly steps of Honda’s Asimo progress to the frankly frightening mobility of Boston Dynamic’s parkouring Atlas, while AI has gone from beating champion players of chess and Go to being able to parse, evaluate, and communicate vast swathes of information via chatbots like ChatGPT. 

And now, according to the latest rumors, Apple wants in. With an Apple Car-shaped hole to fill in its research and development budget and ground to make up between its AI ambitions and the early moves of its competitors, the company is said to be exploring robots for your home. Not one, but two robots in fact.

But should it? Here’s why only one of them makes any sense today.

What’s in the (skunk)works?

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, a regular Apple insider with sources close to the company’s ongoing plans, has reported that Apple is in the early stages of development of two robotics products:

“Engineers at Apple have been exploring a mobile robot that can follow users around their homes, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the skunk-works project is private. The iPhone maker also has developed an advanced table-top home device that uses robotics to move a display around, they said.”

Those that pay close attention to the Apple rumor mill may not be surprised to hear about that second table-top device, which has been previously reported on. But a “mobile robot” is all new — and considerably more ambitious. There’s even a suggestion that Apple hopes such a device, in its ultimate form, could eventually have the dexterity to do household chores like cleaning dishes.

Interestingly, it’s said that both projects have their roots in research carried out for the Apple Car project: A mobile robot presumably needs to understand that collisions are bad just as much as an autonomous car would. The car may be dead, but its legacy may still live on.

The competition (or lack thereof)

But you have to look at the project with a healthy dose of skepticism. Yes, robot vacuum cleaners are now relatively commonplace, and iRobot’s Roomba and Dyson’s robotic cleaners have had success. But that’s a single-use product area designed to hardly ever interact with its user. Is there a market for a more personal form of home robotics? And if not, what would it take to make one?

Apple wouldn’t be the first company to try to answer those questions. Back at CES 2020, Samsung revealed the wonderfully named “Ballie”, a roving smart ball bot that could stream video, play music, and handle some smart home functionality. Ballie 1.0 was vaporware — a show-stealing tech demo and nothing more. But fast-forward to CES 2024 and Ballie was back, bigger, less anthropomorphized, and with an AI infusion. Version 2.0 is probably closer to what Apple envisions for its bot than anything else currently on the market, and is, somewhat incredibly, pitched to go on sale this year.

I’ll believe that when I see it — I’ve seen robots launch and fade into obscurity before. Remember Amazon’s Alexa-fuelled Astro? It too was initially pitched (way back in 2021) as an on-wheels helper around the house. But years after its initial reveal, it remains “available only by invitation” on the Amazon website, priced at $1,599.99. Somewhat tellingly, Amazon quietly repositioned a version of the camera-equipped Astro as ‘Astro for Business’ towards the tail end of 2023, priced at $2,349.99. Now described as a “mobile security robot”, it’s interesting to see Astro openly for sale at a higher price when sold as a human deterrent, compared to its other form as a cheaper human companion (one that you can’t buy even if you want to).

If a robotics push seems a bit of a wild move by Apple, that’d be fair. According to Gurman’s sources, Apple is “under growing pressure to find new sources of revenue” following the shuttering of the costly Apple Car project. Vision Pro, another risky product launch in a somewhat unproven market, is expected to take several years before it’ll become a substantial money-spinner for Apple. There’s a smell of desperation here, and a need to prove that there’s some industry-shifting work going on in regards to AI, even in the far-flung future, that long-term investors need. The hunt for Apple’s next $200 billion iPhone-sized hit continues.

Now keep in mind that these are being reported as ‘moonshot’ ideas — characterized by early prototyping and research that doesn’t necessarily precede an actual product launch. Should Apple continue to pursue a wandering robot for your home it may be many years before it ever comes to fruition. And in that time frame, there’s the potential for all manner of advancements to be made to make a robot butler a plausible product — the rapid progress of artificial intelligence being a key factor here.

But going back to the customer at the heart of this idea, it’s hard to picture a sense of scale to such an idea enough to warrant a huge focus from the company. Apple tends to come late to a party and deliver a best-in-class product — but as Samsung and Amazon’s nascent efforts show, that party hasn’t even sent out invitations yet. That’s a very different prospect to the Apple Car which, despite monumental engineering challenges that eventually shuttered the project, was at least in an area with mass scale and the potential to innovate (and iterate) within. Personal robotics is a long, long way from that.

But a robotics-fuelled smart home hub? That might just make a bit more sense — with or without a robotic element, in fact.

Smart home HomePod hub simplicity — with a sprinkling of robotics

Apple has dabbled in the smart home market for years now — its HomeKit system has carved a niche among the die-hard home automation community, and with some success.

But barring a partnership with the open Matter smart home standard (a standard that, if successful, would eventually make individual smart home standards like HomeKit basically obsolete anyway), Apple hasn’t done much to improve its smart home positioning. Though an iPad, iPhone or Apple TV can effectively control smart home devices, it’s an afterthought in the grand scheme of those devices’ functionality.

I’ve long thought Apple has needed a true smart home hub, and this robotics-injected device could maybe be it. I’m still not convinced by the rumors of the roboticized elements of the device in development — it’s said to resemble an iPad on a motorized arm that can, for instance, mirror the nods and head movements of a person on the other end of a FaceTime call. And that’s presumably alongside doing all manner of other tasks, such as playing video, music, and accepting voice commands to control other connected devices. In fact, it sounds a hell of a lot like Amazon’s Echo Show 10. What did I say about Apple being late to the party, but coming along as the best dressed?

Apple has a potential advantage with an ‘aware’ smart hub that Amazon’s Echo Show 10 does not, however — trust. It doubles down on user privacy and security at every opportunity. And so there’s the feeling that a robotic smart display from Apple that’s intelligent enough to follow a user’s gaze and be equipped with cameras and microphones and all other necessary but-potentially-intrusive components, would be more palatable to the privacy-conscious out there.

And with that, it’d give Apple a fixed place in the busiest hubs in your home — the kitchen and the living room. It’s got the iPhone in your pocket when you’re on the go, it’s got the Mac at your desk when you sit down to work. But it’s never really nailed a pinned-down spot in the places where you unwind and interact with your family. And there’s a wealth of opportunities for Apple to monetize those spaces.

AI-powered robots are likely to come on leaps and bounds in the next few years. But maybe all it takes for Apple to get an early win in the space is some baby steps — and a robotic smart home hub, a mega HomePod if you like, could be a step in the right direction.

More from iMore

• The case for a HomePod with a screen
• Apple AI: What you need to know about artificial intelligence for iPhone and beyond
• Tim Cook promises AI breakthroughs in Apple shareholder meeting

If you're someone who enjoys their lights to be smarter than the average bulb, you're no doubt already very familiar with the Philips Hue lineup from Signify. The company's range of smart lights is second to none, and the Philps Hue Sync TV app takes things to a whole new level by changing the color of your lights to match what's on your TV. It's like the Philips Ambilight of yesteryear but better, and now it's been enhanced thanks to improvements to the existing partnership between Philips Hue and Samsung SmartThings.

The two companies have announced a number of changes as part of the enhanced partnership including changes to the Philips Hue Sync TV app pricing structure and more. Among the changes is the expansion of the app's availability to new countries while SmartThings owners will gain new integrations as well. We're told to expect a change that "revolutionizes the entertainment experience, creating a connected, engaging, and intelligent environment for families to enjoy unforgettable moments together."

“We are excited to continue our collaboration with Philips Hue to bring these transformative features to life,” Mark Benson, Head of SmartThings US said via a press release. “This partnership underscores our commitment to delivering seamless and innovative solutions that enrich the lives of our users, making their smart home experiences more immersive and enjoyable.

Light it up

So what's the story? At the top of the list is the new SmartThings integration that will allow users to adjust the brightness of their Philips Hue lights, switch between Video, Game, and Music mode, and even control whether the light syncing feature is enabled or not using the Sync TV app on their Samsung Galaxy devices, including the latest iPhone 15 competitor, the Galaxy S24. Any SmartThings-compatible device should also be good to go, so you won't necessarily need a Samsung phone to benefit from the new features. "Thanks to the integration with the SmartThings ecosystem, Samsung users will be able to control the Sync TV app via their smartphone alongside their other SmartThings-compatible devices," a Signify press release reads.

More important for some will be the expansion of the Philips Hue Sync TV app's availability to new countries including Brazil, Hong Kong, Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia.

As for the pricing structure, the app will also be available as a monthly subscription for people who would rather avoid the rather costly $129.99 one-time outlay that could well be enough to put people off. Philips Hue probably knows that as well, so it's going to offer a $2.99 per month option for those who want to go that route instead. While some people may not like subscription models, there is no doubt that they allow people to access apps and services that they might otherwise not be able to use and so long as there's a one-time payment option as well, we see little reason for complaint. More pricing flexibility is always good, after all.

As for when this will all happen, we're told that the new availability and pricing will launch this spring. The Philips Hue Sync TV app is available for Samsung Q60 series or higher QLED TVs manufactured from 2022 onward, so you might need to check your model year to confirm compatibility.

More from iMore

• I got the new Philips Hue HomeKit lights, and I love them
• Existing Philips Hue devices will work with Matter connectivity standard
• Nanoleaf Aurora review: Forget Philips Hue — these panels made me love smart lighting

When Apple announced the HomeKit Secure Routers feature back in 2019 it had a lot of promise. The idea, we were told, was to tie HomeKit into network routers and mesh systems so as to add a new layer of security and privacy. It was supposed to make it easier for people to configure their routers and have everything work as it was intended to, especially when using HomeKit-powered accessories. The whole thing would be managed via the Home app, but router support was slow to arrive. And as you'd expect, it never did come to the budget models your ISP gives you. Now, it looks like it probably never will.

Apple is no stranger to abandoning features and services — Ping, we hardly knew ye — but it looks to be at it again, this time with HomeKit Secure Routers. The feature, not to be confused with the more popular HomeKit Secure Video, requires that Apple give the go-ahead for companies to add support for it. And to do that, those companies have to apply. However, a new report claims that Apple is currently not accepting new routers onto the program with no suggestion of when that could change.

The result, right now at least, is that the HomeKit Secure Routers we have on sale today might well be the last that are made available. Two different router vendors say that they tried to get Apple to add it to the HomeKit Secure Router program, only to be told that it is no longer accepting additions. What that means for those who already have them up and running at home, however, remains to be seen.

Abandoned?

While we don't know the two router vendors in question, AppleInsider reports that it told the outlet at CES 2024 that it was given the no-go by Apple after asking to be part of its program.

"During CES 2024, two router vendors separately told AppleInsider that Apple is no longer accepting new routers into its program," the report explains. "If that claim is correct — and it probably is, since it came from the same rejected manufacturers — given the lack of HomeKit Secure Routers on the market, it appears that Apple has abandoned the idea."

However, it's important to note that Apple has yet to confirm the status of the program or whether new vendors can indeed join it, but things don't look good based on the information that is already available. It's also important to note that Apple's own website currently only mentions a pair of compatible routers — one from Amplifi, and one from Linksys.

Why Apple might choose to abandon HomeKit Secure Routers is a matter for debate, but it always seemed unlikely that router companies would willingly hand over control of the management of their hardware to the Home app. In recent years companies like Linksys and others have made a big deal out of their apps and how easily they can be used to set up, configure, and manage even complicated mesh Wi-Fi systems. As AI features also start to join the discussion, a vendor's own app becomes more vital than ever before.

Ultimately, if Apple really has started to cool on its HomeKit Secure Router vision it's time that it put it out to pasture for good, rather than leaving it fester. Another option would be to launch its own router, but it's been years since the AirPort was discontinued and we have to imagine that would have happened by now if it was ever part of Apple's plans.

More from iMore

• How to make your Apple TV, iPad, or HomePod a HomeKit hub
• How to manage HomeKit-enabled routers in the Home app
• Getting started with HomeKit

If you’ve been waiting to make the switch to smart lighting but wanted something a little more stylish than a simple light bulb, Nanoleaf’s new lighting project may be perfect for you. 

Made in collaboration with Umbra, a home decor company based out of Toronto, Canada, the Nanoleaf Umbra selection includes two new lamps that are both Matter-enabled. Matter is a universal standard that allows smart home devices of different kinds to work together, even if they aren’t designed to. This means that both lamps will work with many of the best Homekit hubs, as well as offerings from Google and Amazon.

First off, we have the Cono Portable Smart Lamp which is, as the name suggests, portable. It has up to four hours of battery life and can be charged through its USB-C charging port. You can control it through buttons on the lamp itself, via Bluetooth, or via a Matter-enabled smart home hub. 

Curiously, the Cono has four legs spread evenly at the base, which means you can angle it in a specific way or even hold it as a torch. With 16+ million colors available from the bulb and the base coming in Grey or Sierra, it has a great deal of versatility and looks capable of fitting into many different kinds of aesthetics. The Nanoleaf Cono Smart Lamp releases March 26 and retails for $110 but can be preordered for $98.99 now. 

One more lamp

If you aren’t looking for a portable lamp and want something that sits in a space without moving around too much, the new Nanoleaf Umbra Cup Smart Lamp is shaped like a cup to put all your stationery in. Coming in a black color with a light on the top pointing down, the Umbra Cup could work to light up the room or just add a bit of ambiance. The Umbra Cup Smart Lamp also comes with 16+ million color choices and is Homekit compatible. Like the Cono portable, it can be operated with buttons, Bluetooth, or with Matter smart home hubs. 

Nanoleaf says it is a “beautifully crafted lamp that adds a touch of elegance to any workspace or study area.” Given it looks quite nice, I’m inclined to agree. The Nanoleaf Umbra Cup Smart Lamp releases March 26 for $150 but you can preorder now to get it for $134.99

More from iMore

• Nanoleaf Canvas review
• Nanoleaf Essentials A19 Light Bulb Review
• Nanoleaf Essentials Lightstrip review

Aqara, an excellent smart home device manufacturer, has taken to a major crowdfunding platform to help fund a new smart lock — only to have its funding goal absolutely smashed.

Aqara was only looking for around $10,000 in funding on Kickstarter for its new smart lock, but it has now picked up well over $250,000. That’s an extra $240,000 if you’re paying attention — looks like users are excited for the new device.

The Aqara U200 smart lock lives up to that ‘smart’ descriptor with tons of ways to unlock your door, voice assistant support, and quick installation. As well as being able to use a physical key, you can unlock the new smart lock with a passcode, NFC tag, a voice assistant, via remote access on your iPhone, or with a temporary passcode. Aqara also has its own app which allows users to share a temporary passcode to allow others in.

The Aqara U200 fits easily to your door in just a few minutes as well, so you won’t need to get a professional in to help you out. It helps that you won’t need to change it or charge it for some time. This is because it has IPX5 waterproofing for protection from the rain, works in temperatures from -0.4°F to 150.8°F, and has six months of battery life. It also comes with a rechargeable lithium battery and can also work with four AAA batteries or can be wired, for ultimate flexibility.

The lock was initially available at just $169 for early adopters on Kickstarter, and now all major tiers are sold out. Its final retail price will be a fair few dollars more at $249.99. 

The Aqara U200 is the follow-up to the Aqara U100, which has a slightly longer battery life, at the cost of not being as durable to the weather or water. The U100 is also missing some features like the U200’s easy installation. Both have Matter support. 

Why does this Matter?

Matter is a communication standard for many smart devices, allowing them to interact with each other where they couldn’t before. Even if your device doesn’t directly have support for Apple’s HomeKit, it can work with Apple Home as long as the device is Matter enabled. In this case, you can grab one of the best HomeKit hubs and can ensure full support when this eventually launches. 

As of right now, the Aqara U200 is anticipated to ship at some point in April 2024. If you’re looking to make your lock smarter or want an upgrade, this could be an excellent choice. 

More from iMore

• Best smart locks for Google Home: smarter safety
• Best smart locks
• Best August Smart Locks and Accessories

It’s all well and good having reams upon reams of colorful lighting on the inside of your house, but what about the outside? LIFX looks to fix the drab, white, or yellow-lit exterior of your home with some very tempting HomeKit-connected smart lights, which bring the color in some very cool ways.

The new outdoor range from LIFX has some wicked new options, and they all come in at some pretty incredible prices — so let’s take a look at the line.

LIFX outdoor smart lights

The first on the list are the LED string lights — they’re kind of like holiday Christmas lights, only you can change their color with your iPhone, or Siri. There’s a 24-foot cable with 12 individual LEDs on it, designed not just for Christmas but all year round. These ones are a bit bigger than your standard string lights, so you might not want to hang them on your Christmas tree immediately in March. Don’t worry, I forgot to take mine down, too. You can grab one for $149.

The second are what LIFX calls ‘Outdoor Neon Flex.’ They’re kind of like the string lights, only the lights aren’t individual units along the cable — instead, they’re diffused along the length of the strip for a smoother light transition. It’s 16 feet long, so there’s plenty to go in the eves of your house or around a table. The flex is available for $169.

There’s an LED spotlight as well so that you can light up your house like you might see a fancy opera house lit up. It’s bright, too, at 1600 Lumens, making sure that whatever you point it at is lit properly. The spotlight costs $60.

Finally, two kinds of smart LED path lights. These lights sit along the side of your garden path, and illuminate it in the dark so that you can always see where you’re going. One in a box here — so you’re going to want to pick a few up to line your walkway. There’s a round and a square option available, and both cost $109.

All the outdoor LIFX lights are available to purchase now from HomeDepot, and they connect to low-voltage outdoor wiring systems to make installing them super simple. LIFX makes some of the best LED smart lighting around, so these should be excellent as well.

More from iMore

• HomeKit and the Home app: The ultimate guide to Apple home
• HomeKit Routers: Everything you need to know
• How to manage HomeKit-enabled routers in the Home app

Apple's HomePod with an iPad-like screen attached is still in development, but it doesn't look like it's coming anytime soon.

That's the latest from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman's latest Power On newsletter, which says that Apple continues to work on new ways to combine its devices.

"There was a device that would combine the Apple TV, FaceTime and HomePod in one system, as well as a HomePod with a screen that swivels like a robotic arm", Gurman explains, also noting "Apple also has explored making iPad-like smart displays that could be magnetically attached to a wall."

Sadly, we shouldn't expect any of the above anytime soon. Gurman doesn't believe Apple has made enough progress on any to expect them soon and notes indecision on Apple's part about how to best approach building its smart home product line.

Despite iOS 17.4's beta suggesting a new HomePod with a display could be on the cards, Gurman doesn't believe the mythical device will launch anytime soon.

Where is Apple's smart speaker with a screen?

Gurman does note that Apple is sounding out some suppliers about the concept, notably China's BYD which helps manufacture some iPads, and the project is being helmed by Apple executives Matt Costello and Brian Lynch. Still, the report suggests we'll be waiting until 2025 at the earliest.

The reported smart hub that would add a tablet-like display onto a HomePod-style smart speaker has seemingly been in the works for years. The idea would be to allow for FaceTime calls via the speaker, as well as potentially tying in with Apple TV.

Rivals such as Amazon's Echo Show offer similar functionality, but for the time being you'll need to use the iPhone's StandBy mode for a similar experience within the Apple ecosystem.

For more from Gurman, be sure to check out the latest wearable tech Apple is reportedly looking into, including AirPods with cameras.

There’s been speculation about a HomePod with a built-in display for a while now, and it looks like we could see the redesigned HomePod sooner rather than later.

According to 9to5Mac, code in tvOS 17.4 beta 3 references a new device capable of running the software “Z314.” Apple TV and HomePod both run tvOS, despite the latter lacking a user interface. In the source code, the “Z314” is powered by an A15 Bionic chip, and the code reveals there are production versions of the product in testing. 

tvOS 17.4 beta 3 also adds SwiftUI as well as hangtracerd, which is a system tool for debugging unresponsive UI — which begs the question. Why would a HomePod have need for a debug for an unresponsive UI without the addition of a screen?

We’ve heard rumblings of a HomePod with a display for months, and the idea of a HomePod merged with a small tablet like an iPad mini 6 is a very intriguing product concept. Amazon’s Echo Show and Google Nest are great examples of what a smart speaker/display combo can be, and the thought of Apple entering that market is incredibly exciting. If the product is in testing, we might not have long to wait to see a HomePod with a display in the flesh, and I’ll be right at the front of the line to grab what is sure to be the best smart speaker on the market. 

A HomePod with a screen? Why?

Imagine the possibilities of a HomePod with a built-in display. You could take FaceTime calls in the kitchen without propping up your iPhone, use Apple Music with gorgeous cover art on display at all times, and even do a quick Google search with Siri without grabbing your phone from your pocket. I’ve been an admirer of the Echo Show for a while, but I'm not a fan of Amazon’s UI, so the thought of a tvOS HomePod is something that I’d be very intrigued to see come to fruition.

More from iMore

• I turned my HiFi system into a very expensive HomePod
• HomePod mini: Is Apple's smart speaker worth getting?
• Apple HomePod 2: Everything you need to know

Building a smart home is a complicated affair. Some devices need to be hooked up directly to your existing HomeKit hubs, and then some need an extra hub to connect to those hubs. Some devices from the same manufacturer even need different hubs for different products to work and rely on different connection methods to hook it all up. It’s easy to see how complicated it can all get.

Nuki, the smart lock manufacturer, just streamlined the process of getting one of its devices connected to your HomeKit setup — and it’s all thanks to a little thing called Thread.

Matter-compatible smart lock

Nuki’s Smart Locks now connect to a smart home system with Thread rather than WiFi or Bluetooth, for what Nuki calls a connection method “more responsive than Bluetooth, more stable and efficient than Wi-Fi.”

Of course, that’ll leave you thinking — what does all this mean? To put it simply, a Thread device acts as its own router using its own wireless protocol. This means that the lock can connect to any device that accepts that wireless protocol, such as your HomePod or Apple TV. Where before Nuki’s lock needed a Nuki hub to connect to the main hub, this is no longer true, as the fourth generation of Nuki’s locks all support Thread connections, something that not even the best HomeKit door locks can boast.

For Smart Lock Pro, you don’t need to pay any more than the standard purchase price of 285 Euros/$307, but those who purchase or already own the standard smart lock will need to buy “Remote Access via Thread” in Nuki App for 49 Euros/$52 on top of the 169 Euros/$180 asking price. All of Nuki’s products are compatible with Matter as well, which means they’ll work with a massive range of smart home standards. That means HomeKit support, along with SmartThings, Alexa, and more. You can learn more about Nuki’s products and where you can buy them on the Nuki website.

More from iMore

• HomeKit and the Home app: The ultimate guide to Apple home
• Getting started with HomeKit
• How to make your Apple TV, iPad, or HomePod a HomeKit hub