Smart home products

Some of the best HomeKit gear for making life easier

- 

HomeKit may have fallen behind Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant in the home-automation are still enough HomeKitcompatible devices available to market, but there create a pretty impressive smart home setup.

The three top product categories in the smart home market are speakers, lights and security cameras. Apple does have a list of HomeKit-compatible devices on its website (apple.co/3WeNNrX) and this includes lots of other devices such as thermostats, controls for fans and air-conditioning systems, smart locks for your front door, and even remote controls for garage doors. However, many of these more complex devices require professional installation and the last thing you want to do in the middle of the winter is to screw up your heating by trying to wire up a HomeKit thermostat by yourself!

AIRPLAY MEETS HOMEKIT

That brings us back to the big three smart home items - speakers, lights and security cameras. The good news for audiophiles is that Apple's AirPlay software - which was originally designed for multiroom speaker systems - is compatible with HomeKit and the Home app. This means that any AirPlay speaker can be controlled using the Home app, Siri, or Control Center on any of your Apple devices. You can even mix and match speakers from different manufacturers, perhaps playing the same music on a Sonos Roam portable speaker in your garden, and also on a HomePod in the kitchen.

And, while HomeKit has struggled to attract support from other manufacturers, AirPlay has been adopted by many big-name audio brands, such as Sonos, Bowers & Wilkins, and Bang & Olufsen. Even Ikea has got in on the act with its somewhat bizarre Symfonisk speaker/lamp hybrid. The one disappointment here is that Apple doesn't allow these manufacturers to include Siri in their smart speakers, so the only smart speaker that currently supports Siri is Apple's own HomePod mini.