Best HomeKit Apps for your Smart Home!

did you know that you can get more out of your Apple Home Smart Home by using thirdparty homekit apps these apps can really harness the power and capabilities of your Apple Home Smart home today I'm going to show you all of the apps that I keep in my toolkit to help me take my smart home to the next level let's go yo what's up guys my name is Shane and this channel is all about building an easy apple Home Smart home with new videos and live streams published every week today we're talking homekit apps now you may or may not know that the standard Apple home app is a little bit limiting homekit as an actual framework really has much more capabilities than you can access just in the Apple home app so there's a difference between the Apple home app and homekit as an API or a framework just a real quick simple example home automation can actually have multiple triggers and even more advanced conditions um you can actually see that right here but there's no way to configure this in the Apple home app it's clearly a homekit automation but you can't create this in the Apple home app I actually use a third-party homekit app to create this automation so with that said I've used all the apps that I have mentioned here today some I do use more than others some may be interchangeable or have features that over La AP with others some you know I go through phases and use you know more than I do other times but all of them have certain capabilities that extend beyond the native Apple home app and you should really consider for your toolbox as I often say if you are building an apple Home Smart home we'll start with the eve app I think the eve app is the only one on the list today that is actually made by a product manufacturer meaning Eve uh makes Smart Home Products so if you do have Eve products like I do then you will want this app because you can access some extra features for your Eve products that you can access in the Apple home app but you don't have to own any of the Eve products to use this app and I like to recommend this one for everyone even if you don't have Eve products because it's free it is the you know most powerful free homekit automation app I think you can control your devices setup room scenes and automations just like you can in the native Apple home app the difference here is that the EV app does give you more access to the capabilities of homekit so you can create those you know Advanced automations with multiple triggers multiple conditions things like that like I showed you in the intro and yes before you say it some of these you know automations and things you can technically still do in the Apple homat by converting your automation to a shortcut and using scripting for things like conditions but honestly it's so much easier to use the EVAP and the EVAP just uses the homekit API you know that's all it's using so you can even see these automations in the Apple home app once you create them or once you're done configuring them in the EVAP like I mentioned so the EVAP great free app for creating more advanced automations there are a couple other apps that are also really great for advanced automations but first let me tell you about the sponsor of today's video and it is what I use to protect all my devices from viruses malware ransomware and other threats that is the Tren micro premium Security Suite this can be installed on up to 10 devices including your iPhones iPads PCS Macs and it's super easy to use and set up it also includes a VPN that you can use to turn any public hotspot into a secure Wi-Fi connection as well as other tools like parental controls identity theft protection and 24/7 emergency assistance I'll put a link below and you can use code Shane 10 to get 10% off your subscription of the premium Security Suite big thanks to Tren micro for protecting all of my devices for years now and for supporting this channel signals for homekit is a simple app that allows you to easily flash any of your homekit lights with just a tap great for getting the attention of those in your house the app support series shortcuts so you can set up signals to flash the lights in your kids room when it's dinner time for example things like that there's also a Mac version of this app that is quite a bit more powerful this gives you some Advanced automation capabilities now in the signals app app on the Mac you can create automations that will flash your lights or run any of your personal shortcuts on your Mac triggered by homekit accessories now let me say that again with this app your homekit accessories can trigger automations that run any of your personal shortcuts on that Mac pretty powerful I think I made a whole video about that a while back I will be sure to link that Below in the description you can download the signals app for free to test it out but to unlock all of the features it'll be $4.99 and to get the automation capabilities in the Mac version It's $88.99 if you want both you can get that for $12.99 it's hard to cover homekit apps without hearing the name Aaron Pierce Aaron has created a number of really great homekit apps most of them are pretty simple and do one thing really well I found uh homecam for example is great for viewing the live streams of all your cameras even multiple streams at once there is an Apple TV version as well as an iOS iPad OS Mac OS and watch OS version it supports shortcuts so you can do some pretty cool things like opening up camera feeds and stuff like that with your shortcuts home cam cost $77.99 Home Pass is a great app for storing your homekit and matter QR codes which is something I definitely recommend everybody do whether you use this app or not one thing that is great about this app is that it supports Apple watch so you can just pull up your QR codes to scan from your watch if you you know ever have to reset up or reconfigure any of your accessories Home Pass is a onetime fee of $4.99 and I've heard they've got a big update coming uh soon so be on the lookout for that Home Run 2 is an app that lets you quickly access homekit actions and scenes through beautiful complications on your Apple watch or your device's home screen home run 2 is free to download the basic version and you can unlock all of the features with the Home Run plus monthly or yearly subscriptions or get the lifetime license for $4.99 home paper is another one by Aaron Pierce it is a simple app that lets you create custom wallpapers for the home app so get unlimited exports for a one-time payment of 99 well worth it if you're looking to easily customize you know the backgrounds of your Apple home app and lastly from Aaron home log is an app for $4.99 I believe and it does pretty much what it sounds like it would do you can see a log of what's happening in your home kit home home this is good for troubleshooting you know and trying to find issues in your homekit home especially over time the app does have to be open together logs so you know the Mac version is good if you're trying to look at logs you know over the course of like a whole day or something the home plus app is another great app for creating Advanced automations something else I like to use this app for is for checking or accessing device characteristics that the home app hides so yeah the home app actually hides a lot of things that um are are exposed a homekit you just can't get to them in the Apple home app for example some lights may actually expose an effect mode to homekit you know among other things that you just can't see in the Apple home app it's also just a really good looking app you may even want to use it as your primary app for controlling devices I don't know that's up to you lots of custom icons that you can use you can access the cameras change wallpaper even utilize widgets and create backups of your smart home configuration all in all very solid homekit app and one that I've had in my toolbox for years now the home plus app currently is a one-time purchase of1 14.99 very reasonable price I think considering all the features that you get with this one next up the controller for homekit app does a lot of the same things as the home plus app does and then some probably this is a very powerful app and one that I highly recommend especially for a homekit power users I'd say it allows you to create Advanced automations access hidden device characteristics smart folders homekit logs and backups and more I really love the maintenance section of this app did you know that homekit supports only a maximum of 100 scenes so in the maintenance section of the controller for homekit app you can see how close you are to reaching that Max number um you can do other things like check low batteries and you know all kinds of stuff here to clean up and organize your homekit setup which which is really great you can also store your homekit and matter setup codes in the app really great again highly recommend doing that somewhere last year they released an advanced notification feature which is really cool I actually did a whole video on that a while back which I will link down in the description below if interested in checking that video out after this one again fantastic app really couldn't recommend this one enough not cheap at all for an app they offer monthly or yearly subscriptions as well as a lifetime license I do think it's well worth the investment though if you're really serious about building a homekit smart home the home devices app recently joined forces with the previously mentioned controller for homekit app but home devices was already a great app and one that I've been using and recommending for quite some time it's great for a few reasons that make it different than really anything else on the list here this app maintains a catalog of homekit supported devices so you can search through different categories and you know just find out what's available what products are out there that support apple homekit which is really cool and they take it even a step further by showing you all of the capabilities it has within homekit without having to actually purchase the device and set it up you can even create your own smart home wish list here within the app so that alone is probably worth downloading the app in my opinion the app also has a free courses section where you can learn more about homekit and matter uh the news section is great this is a curated collection of Apple home related news from various sources you can choose which blogs and content creators you would like to see here in this section and even get notifications through the app when one of them releases new content maybe the best part about this app it's free so really there's no reason not to download this one now if you really like widgets for the home screen of your iPhone or iPad check out the home widget app Apple home app does now provide native widgets these days so I actually haven't been using this app as much lately but the home Widgets app does give you quite a bit more functionality than you can get with just the native Apple home widgets so might be worth checking out if you're really into making those you know those customized home screens for your iPhone or iPad I can see even using this to create some sort of custom dashboard for something like an iPad there is a limited free version a 49 c monthly subscription and a $4.99 annual subscription or you can get a lifetime license for $9.99 home batteries for homekit is a very simple app that yep you guessed it shows you all the battery levels of your homekit accessories I find this to be a Simple app that's executed very well of course you can check the battery status but you can also get notifications when the batteries are low and create your own custom thresholds and stuff like that for notifications if you want the app supports home screen and lock screen widgets as well as series shortcuts the home batteries app cost a one-time payment I believe of $2.99 that's probably less than a cup of overpriced coffee that you had this morning these next two apps I put in the dashboard app category first up the home Dash app this one's been around for a while but I only recently started using it it's $19.99 on the app store and they offer an iOS an iPad OS and an Apple Watch version H dash allows you to create custom dashboards to control your homekit device devices so you basically create dashboards by adding and moving around little widgets it's really easy to use and it does look great I've been testing it out lately on my wallmounted iPad and I got to say I really like this one you know here's another use case I was thinking of for this you know homekit still doesn't give us the option to restrict certain users in like the home from specific accessories which does kind of suck you know you wouldn't want your seven-year-old to shut off the water to your whole house for example if that's exposed a h kit uh like in my house or control the garage door sprinkler systems all that so I was thinking something like this could actually be a good workaround if you have a kid maybe and you still want to give them some access you know maybe with their iPad or whatever like that to control the lights in their room you can create a custom dashboard with this app and teach your kid to use just this app for you know controlling the lights in their room then they'll never need to use the home app and uh you know hopefully you won't have to worry about them you know turning on the sprinkler system in the middle of the night or cutting on all the lights throughout the house Biz designer is another app for creating custom dashboards but this one's a little bit different Vis designer is extremely customizable much more than the home Dash app that we just discussed but this one has a much steeper learning curve you can do things like add widgets buttons popups multiple Pages HTML embeds and so much more and this app does actually require you to first set up your layouts and everything anything like that on their desktop software either for Mac or Windows um you connect your homekit devices over there and then you can create your layouts using your devices it's very similar to in many ways to like graphic design software something like Photoshop for example it was at one point I think around $50 but at the time of this recording it's $19.99 I did a whole video or two on viz designer a while back and using this with like my wallmounted iPads and stuff I'll be sure to you know put links to everything down below and also if you're a channel member I did a full like 45 minute tutorial that you can watch if interested on viz designer and if you're not a channel member to support this channel even further consider hitting that join button down below should be able to find it next to the Subscribe button somewhere as a channel member you'll get access to perks like exclusive member only content my members Discord server which is a great place to ask questions and interact with others who are also building Smart Homes we hold monthly virtual Hangouts all kinds of good stuff there for channnel members Big shout out and thank you to all of the current channel members you guys and girls are awesome and I really really appreciate the continued support Discovery is not a homekit app but it's one that I wanted to mention I've used this one to get a better picture of my thread Network and just kind of see what's going on there on my local network uh hopefully we'll have better thread diagnostic tools and capabilities in the near future which is something we've told should be coming but at the time of this recording there's not much out there much of what goes on in your thread Network really isn't accessible anywhere so the discovery app which you can download for free on your Mac or iPhone uh will show you what devices are on your local network and you know I've just found this helpful in troubleshooting especially like thread network issues push cut is an extremely powerful automation app that works really well alongside homekit and shortcuts you can use homekit scenes shortcuts and other triggers to send cust smart notifications through push cut notifications that can even give you actionable options like running other shortcuts a simple example is a push cut notification that I created a while back that gets sent if my gate is left open for more than 5 minutes notification presents me with options one of which is to call my wife you know maybe I'm away and she's home the other option is to actually run a shortcut that opens up one of my cameras using the home cam app which supports shortcuts that we mentioned earlier so maybe you can see how having you know a lot of these different apps at your disposal can kind of come in handy to really help you get the most out of your homekit smart home pushkit also has an automation server feature that enables you to automatically run your personal shortcuts at home one use case here is the ability to use homekit accessories to trigger personal shortcuts which is something that's not really possible in any other way the automation server does require a dedicated always on iOS device with an internet connection so you know push cut can get kind of advanced I don't necessarily recommend it for everyone but if you've understood everything that I just said it's certainly something to check out push cut does offer a few different subscription options for both push Cut Pro and the automation server capabilities you can also get a push Cut Pro lifetime license for 39.99 now portal is a beautifully designed app that transports you to different places around the world the app features gorgeous Ultra HD visuals alongside Dynamic spatial audio they say it's a productivity app that uses immersive Technologies to transform your surroundings into a Haven for focus and creativity the best part about it you can sync your homekit lights to the app when you do this the lights in your room will reflect the portal you've chosen I really love using this here in the studio while I'm working I've been using it a lot lately you can download a free version on Mac iPhone and iPad for a limited selection of portals it is $9.99 monthly or $449.99 annually to unlock the entire Library so definitely not a cheap app by any means but I did reach out to the developer of this app and they kindly offered me a 50% annual premium membership discount exclusively for you guys my audience I will include a link in the description below that you can use to take advantage of that discount if you want also it's worth noting that they teamed up with nanoleaf so premium members of the portal app also can get an exclusive 15% discount across the entire Nano Leaf line of smart lighting Products which is pretty awesome many many of the lights that you see here in my studio are Nano Leaf lights and they are a big reason why I've enjoyed using the portals app so much lately and if I'm able to get discount codes for any of the other apps or anything else that we discuss here today I will be sure to put that down in the video description as well let me know in the comments below what is your favorite third-party homekit app maybe there's a good one that I missed or one that I haven't used yet or maybe you like to use a combination of some of these that we discussed here today either way would love to hear from from you again links to all the apps are in the video description as well as any past videos that I may have done using these apps thanks again to Tren micro for sponsoring today's video don't forget link and discount code for the premium Security Suite is also available down below thanks so much for watching I hope today's video was helpful and I will see you in the next [Music] one

Channel: Shane Whatley

Views: 27,652

Keywords: homekit, Apple Homekit, smart home, homekit apple, homekit devices, homekit smart home, affordable homekit, affordable homekit devices, home automation, smarthome, trendmicro, premiumsecuritysuite, homekit apps, apple home apps, matter apps, home devices app, controller for homekit, homepass app, smart home apps, pushcut, portal, portal app

Id: n40IE-249vs

Length: 19min 54sec (1194 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 11 2024