Alongside a slew of Modern feature film for iOS 16 , announced atWWDC 2022 , the companionship unveiled a brand - young Apple Home app for saucy home restraint , in the lead of the launch of the Matter standard .
Rather than just give the current app a facelift , Apple has say that it has reworked Home ( and the implicit in HomeKit applied science ) from the ground up , with sweetening to the underlying applied science design to make it more efficient and dependable for users to control gadget .
More noticeable are the changes come directly to the app , with a fresh interface that ’s designed to make it sluttish to voyage organise and view accessories . The latter is important . Once dwelling gets occupy up with machine , trying to find a specific one to control can be very hard .
With the new version of Home , Apple has premise categories , including those for lights and security devices . Selecting a category display just those devices , sorted into elbow room . It should think an close to hunt for devices , yield quick approach to those equipment you use more often .
Apple has steadily amend its video television camera living , with late additions tote up citizenry spying into the mix . Now Apple has its eye on stimulate it easy to see what ’s give way on in your plate with a new multi - camera view that rent you see four camera at once , with additional provender uncommitted by scrolling to the right .
There are also new lock chamber screen widgets , giving immediate access to some devices without having to unlock a phone and launch the Home app .
What the fresh Home app wo n’t have at launch isMattersupport . That ’s come later in the yr as a software update when the young stock launches this Autumn . Designed to make interconnectedness , initiation and smart gadget discovery easier , Matter is backed by all of the heavy technical school companies , including Apple , Google , Amazon and Samsung .
When Matter launches , it should increase the number of devices that are compatible with HomeKit dramatically , making Apple ’s Home app even more muscular and useful than it is today .
Opinion
As someone with a lot of smart home plate devices , I suffer from seek to determine gadget in the Home app . I flicker between rooms , and scroll up and down through identical - look tiles , desperately look for the gadget that I really need to hold . With the raw interface , Apple looks to have made this easier , and I ’m not going to plain about that .
Yet for all of the polish , the main affair holding Home and HomeKit back is twist support . With far fewer devices supported than on Alexa or Google Assistant , even when you add in unofficial gimmick bread and butter through the excellent HomeBridge waiter , Home is held back by but not making everything available in one place .
It ’s this that the Matter communications protocol promise to figure out . When this at long last launches in Autumn , supported in iOS 16 via a software update , we ’ll finally get to see what Home is really capable of . Given that , in my belief , Home Automations are some of the most powerful and flexible ; opening them up to a wider cooking stove of products could make Apple ’s system of rules my smart home program of choice .
