With home kit, apple created a common language that smart devices from any manufacturer can understand and support. HomeKit also leverages Siri to have voice controls in it.
Devices from various manufactures can understand and interact each other with HomeKit.
Manufacturers must add support for HomeKit to their smart devices for those devices to be considered HomeKit enabled. Apple announced partnership with many manufacturers such as iHome, Philips, iDevices, Belkin, HoneyWell and Kwikset.
In home kit, everything such as home, room, device, function, setting etc must have its own name and be stored in a common database accessible by Siri. For e.g. if one own a House and a condo, we will have to assign each home a different name. Every single room in all of the homes must have different name as well.
Every function or service that the device is capable of providing will need a distinct name in home kit. So, if we want a cup of coffee, we can name the machine “Coffee Pot” and function as “Brew”.
Grouping allows to for instance turn off all the lights in a house with a single spoken command. Grouping also includes sub-features such as Action Sets or scenes. An example scene could be “Its bedtime” and various devices and actions are connected to that scene (such as locking doors, turning off lights, setting up the alarm clock etc)
HomeKit includes end to end encryption between iOS devices and smart devices. HomeKit API also demands that the App that uses the API must run in the foreground.
Apple Allows HomeKit to work with non HomeKit devices that use competing protocols such as Zigbee or Z-Wave. A bridged accessory would connect a non-HomeKit devices to iOS device and therefore allowing to control using Siri commands.
References:
No comments:
Post a Comment