HomeKit in iOS 15, watchOS 8 and more: 8 new features to look forward to

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HomeKit in iOS 15 and more: this is coming

HomeKit is maturing every year, with many useful and smart new features that make controlling your smart home devices easier. Apple is also planning various HomeKit improvements in 2021, which will be available in iOS 15, watchOS 8 and tvOS 15. The improvements this year are a bit more modest than previous years, but they are nevertheless useful improvements to get excited about.

  • Home Keys
  • Siri on HomeKit products

    • Home Keys
    • Siri on HomeKit products
    • Schedule operation with Siri
    • Parcel Detection
    • HomeKit Secure Video
    • Home on Apple Watch
    • Apple TV Enhancements
    • Matter Support

    #1 Home Keys: House keys in Wallet
    Compatible with: iOS 15, watchOS 8
    HomeKit door locks offer all the advantage of being able to remotely open and lock your doors from your iPhone or Apple Watch. But Home Keys goes one step further. This feature adds a digital house key to the Wallet app. You can then open your door lock via NFC, simply by holding your iPhone or Apple Watch near the lock. So you no longer have to open the Home app or tap the notification that appears when you are at your house.

    HomeKit door lock makers must support the feature, so it won't be available for all models right away. HomeKit manufacturer Aqara is already hinting that they will support the feature. Well-known brands such as Assa Abloy are also participating, but a complete list of suitable models is not yet available.

    #2 Siri on HomeKit products
    Compatible with: iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8
    One major drawback of Siri is that the assistant only lives on Apple devices. That is different with the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa: you will also find it on the speakers and other devices, for example from Sonos. This will change from the autumn, because Siri will soon also live in thermostats, speakers or other suitable HomeKit products. A side note is that you do need a HomePod or HomePod mini for that. The HomePod processes your voice request to ensure that your voice command is not picked up by third parties.

    #3 Schedule control with Siri
    Suitable for: iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, tvOS 15, HomePod software version 15
    A handy improvement is that you will soon be able to say to Siri on your iPhone, Apple Watch or HomePod to switch on a lamp on a specific time. For example, say to Siri on your iPhone “Turn on the bedroom light at 11pm”. You can also say that all lights should go out as soon as you leave home. So it's a kind of one-time automation, where you schedule an action for an accessory via Siri.

    #4 Package detection for cameras’s
    Compatible with: iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, macOS Monterey, tvOS 15
    Cameras that support HomeKit Secure Video recognize people, animals and vehicles. From iOS 15, a camera, such as a doorbell, also recognizes packages that are delivered to the door. The camera then warns you if a package is left at your door. It remains to be seen whether this will be of much use to us in the Netherlands. It is not so common with us that packages are just left at the door, while that happens much more often in the US.

    #5 More cameras for HomeKit Secure Video
    Speaking of HomeKit Secure Video: Apple has a small improvement in store for that too. Currently, there is still a five-camera limit for the most expensive 2TB iCloud storage, but that limit is moving to the 200GB iCloud plan (that was one camera). Instead, with 2TB of iCloud storage, you'll soon be able to set up an unlimited number of HomeKit Secure Video cameras. This is also part of iCloud+, the new name of the paid iCloud service.

    These are the new limits per iCloud storage.

    • 50GB iCloud account (€0.99 per month): 10 days history, 1 camera
    • 200GB iCloud account (€2.99 per month): 10 days history, 5 cameras
    • 2TB iCloud account (€9.99 per month): 10 days history, unlimited number of cameras

    #6 Improved Home app on Apple Watch
    Suitable for: watchOS 8
    The Home app for the Apple Watch is getting a major update for the first time. For example, the status symbols that you already know from the Home app on the iPhone, iPad and Mac appear at the top of the Home app. So you can quickly see the status of some important accessories and what the temperature is in your home. Also new is that later in the app you can switch to specific rooms or only view your favorites. There is also a separate Cameras section, where you can view all the cameras in your home together. Finally, the Home app on Apple Watch provides suggestions for scenes and accessory control based on the time of day. For example, the Goodnight scene will be at the top late at night, while the Good morning scene will be at the top early in the morning.

    #7 Apple TV gets more HomeKit features
    Compatible with: tvOS 15
    With tvOS 15, the Apple TV gets some minor HomeKit improvements. Since tvOS 14 you can already view images from HomeKit cameras on your television, but if you have several you can now view them all at once in a grid of four. This gives you an overview of four cameras, as a kind of control room for your home. Also new is that you can immediately control a few important scenes and devices via the corner at the bottom of the screen. Finally, you can indicate in the settings of tvOS what type of notifications cameras are allowed to give. For example, you can choose to only receive notifications of newly saved fragments or when a specific movement is recognized (for example from people, animals, vehicles or packages).

    In the Control Center on the Apple TV you can now scroll more easily between your different cameras. A complete Home app is still missing, as is the control of individual accessories. You can still use Siri for that if you want.

    #8 Support for Matter
    Matter is the newest platform for smart home, which is the result of a collaboration between Apple, Google, Zigbee, Amazon and others. The first products with Matter will be released this fall, but Apple has already announced that support for Matter will be added in HomeKit in iOS 15. That means that all accessories that work with Matter are also HomeKit compatible, but there you need iOS 15 for it.

    More about iOS 15
    iOS 15 is the major update for the iPhone and iPod touch. If you want to know whether your iPhone is suitable for iOS 15, you will find the answer in our article. We expect the official iOS 15 release in September/October 2021. Find out what else was announced during the keynote in our WWDC 2021 recap!