If you read the announcement and watched the WWDC you would realize that apple isn’t entering the market to become the next controller to purchase. What they are doing is exposing classifications for devices to be compatible with, meaning now when you go buy a new z-wave door lock it will say “Works with HomeKit”. This is what all of the developers have been asking for in terms of Siri being the standard for voice control. Instead of Apple opening up the API for Siri to allow developers to get their hooks into it and leverage it to its fullest capabilities, they are going to have their own specification that these devices must be compliant with in order to use your iDevice to control it. If anything I think the Vera controller needs to become compliant with HomeKit in the near future and that would help us iOS developers leverage some long awaited abilities and functionality. Companies that refuse to implement this specification won’t die off, but it might be a slow death. Most people are not like us on this board and I can already see average people going out to buy a new lock and see that it works with iPhone or iOS and they will immediately buy it even if it isn’t the best thing on the market, because that is what apple does, they start fad’s and they get large amount of sales based on on fad’s.
I am regretting my purchase every day. This is NOT for mainstream users. I don’t have the time or inclination to tinker with scenes and plugins as it currently stands. MCV folks seem to be on extended vacation - its been more than 2 months since they posted anything new on the “Announcements” or “Blog” section.
I am one that is waiting anxiously for either Google or Apple to take over. For all the hate that Apple might get for restrictions - at least it works. At the end of the day, thats what I want - something I can actually use and have fun using, not something that makes me want to pull my hair out.
The vera controller is basically a very slow, temperamental box with a horrible user interface that requires you to source actually functionality through the joke MCV calls the Mios Marketplace. To add insult, there does not seem to be any real quality control or guidelines to maintain user confidence.
For example, I am glad that I did not waste my time messing around with the PLEG plugins after seeing that the licensing scheme seems to be a fluid situation and anyone using it being subject to those whims. I’m just glad I’m not the guy that had a flooded rental unit because his PLEG didn’t run because he “didn’t get the memo” that it costs money to use now.
At this rate, Vera will probably continue to stagnate and fade away. I can be sure that I am not the only one just waiting for even a slightly better product to bail.
But with Homekit the logic and rules are on the UI side, which to me seems inconsistent with home automation. Status and state need to be house-side, not moving around on iOS devices that may or may not be online. So what has apple really announced here, other than some APIs that perhaps will only work with Homekit branded hardware?
Logic and status could reside in a router or in the cloud. But then that process would be the HA controller. Apple using just wifi in Homekit devices seems to greatly simplify a new HA system.
Apple making their routers Homekit compatible feels to me like the way they would approach HA.
So is “Homelink” going to be open or is it yet another closed API that will only ever work with iOS devices (perhaps it’s intentions). I’m not 100% sure what this will mean, but if it ultimately means that HA manufacturers are forced to do things “Apple’s way”*, then I’m NOT for it. IT’s like AirPlay. It’s great, but there was already an open standard for doing the same exact thing. Instead of Apple trying to make the open standard better, they opted to do their own which, for the most part, forces you into their ecosystem. I’m not for that.
I’m not saying that liking Apple products is bad, just that Choice is great. With this now overblown control that Apple has with the market, I am truly scared they will lead us all down a path of “Apple’s way”. The only open standard I’ve seen them really commit to was WebKit. Perhaps I’m wrong and “HomeKit” will be just as open of a standard like WebKit is, but I’ll have to see it to believe it.
*I say Forced because I honestly believe that a lot of manufacturers believe that if you don’t support apple’s technologies, you will fail. I think this perhaps was true when iOS ruled the market, but I don’t think that is the case anymore with Android having over 80% of the market (I believe). I know a lot of that market are budget phones, but it’s still a heafty market.
I’m not saying Apple, Google, or Microsoft are all good or bad options, just that Open standards benefit the consumer more than closed standards do. If Apple (and the others) would just come together to build a great Open standard for HomeKit (which perhaps Apple is looking to do), then HA would have a huge boost in the right direction.
[quote=“PotCheese, post:16, topic:181409”] “Apple does not do … open”
AirPrint.
The best thing that can happen to this space is Apple forcing quality on the community. It will take the DIY out of home automation, but we are nerds, we will find the next DIY 
At least now, our homes will work the way we want them to.[/quote]
My problem is that they could have easily done the same “quality”, but using open standards. Is AirPrint available on any other platforms or is it Apple specific? If it’s the latter, I don’t thin kit does much for the consumer at large except give a small % a needed feature.
I feel the same way about AirPlay. They could have worked with DLNA to give the same quality while enhancing an already existing and open standard. Instead they went on their own because they feel like having that feature will entice users to move closer and closer to an Apple Centric ecosystem. Nothing wrong with that, but I don’t find that very pro-consumer. It’s Pro-Apple 100%.
I look at this from a whole different direction. Apple needs to create or enter new markets to sell products. Apple has grown by buying small companies…hundreds of them over time. (Their biggest acquisition by far is Beats for $3B and that is big by Apple standards). From there Apple infuses the key acquired technologies into their technologies to sell phones and tablets and computers. I suggest by introducing Homekit, this is the bait Apple is throwing into the HA waters to attract the various companies developing HA. As these companies develop using a Homekit API then they become part of the Apple ecosystem. Take voice control for instance. Why spend your capital to develop a voice capability when Siri can do the job for you? And with Homekit being developed for many HA protocols I suggest Apple isn’t targeting Z-Wave or Zigbee, or whatever… they want to own all of it. Homekit will be the introduction and the acquisition of MCV and all the other companies will be the finale. This is how Apple how did it with music with the introduction of Itunes. Build it and they will come.
And to take this a little farther. During the time of Steve Jobs, Apple would have never purchased something like Beats and have it operate as a separate company. Apple has long brought everything they have bought under the big Apple tent. Things are changing and have changed at Apple. Buying small companies like MCV and the like would fit in perfectly with this new Apple acquisition strategy.
Buying MCV doesn’t make sense in any universe I’m familiar with. Apple could engineer a fresh z-wave controller in less than a year, they have the engineering talent, resources and business discipline to do so. The Vera product is limited to hobbyists and such, so it’s not like they would be inheriting a huge customer base.
For me, Apple is competing in many areas with Google now (they are both financially so far ahead of anyone else in the tech space) - and Apple have a huge vault of cash to spend and they want/need to divest their interests a bit more.
Google bought Nest, Apple will evolve it’s own solution and license it along with it’s branding too (think iPod/iPhone Compatible)
Beats was a very profitable company with a good reputation - I’ve always been curious why Apple have not bought others - I always thought Sonos would be a good fit.
iTunes will soon be on Android, and there’s even been talk about Apple releasing an Android phone themselves (I’m not to sure about that, SJ would turn in his grave) but we’re going to see Apple branch out into many more areas.
IOS 8 and their Health features sets up wearable tech for their September event for sure. iCloud storage hits Dropbox (I believe someone quoted Job’s - who said when he couldn’t buy them, he’d recreate them)
Being a fan of Apple - I’m actually excited to see them moving into other areas, and as a Home Automation junkie their move into HA is going to be very VERY interesting. But I can’t see me moving away from Vera any time soon (but UI8 and Vera 4 will need to be a real step forward)
Beats wasn’t very profitable when they started to manufacture their own stuff, and when Apple picked them up they were “on the brink of insolvancy” according to analysts. They also do not have a significant IP portfolio. My gues is: Apple picked them up because Beats is popular with an important demographic group, and Apple want to “hippen up” their senior leadership a little, after Jobs passed away. Which, by the way, may make Beats a good buy for Apple; unfortunately image and marketing are still of paramount importance in this day and age.
But back to HA I am glad that bigger players like Apple and Google are moving into this space. They are the ones to address usability and quality issues, bring HA to the masses, and thereby encourage more manufacturers to create HA-capable appliances and devices.
I am still a bit confused by Apple’s approach to HA, though. It’s nice to turn on lights and change the thermostat from your iPhone, but “remote control” is just the first step in HA, and every one of my acquaintances who got involved in HA, from techy to grandma, wants some form of real automation at some point. HA requires a hub, and your smart phone ain’t it. I can foresee an Apple device (Apple TV maybe) with HomeKit as a hub, but that still requires someone to write software for it. Preferably software that, like Vera, is sufficiently pluggable to allow 3rd parties to add devices outside the standard to it. Perhaps Apple is planning a hub and such software, but so far nothing would indicate that.
I’m disappointed that Apple did not consider Z-Wave as their platform. It has some drawbacks: it is not under Apple control (very important to them), and as I understand it, expensive to license. However it does occupy a sweet spot in terms of compromise between reliability, cost, and usability. It already has an established market with a wide range of products across the globe, which on the one hand would give them a complete HA offering from the get-go, and on the other hand the relative immaturity of the market gives them opportunity to improve upon those products (I am disappointed by many Z-Wave products, only Fibaro stands out as a company paying attention to the details). And it does very well as far as interoperability between brands is concerned.
HA does not need Apple. It needs companies like Fibaro to improve the product line, and it needs someone to build a reliable and easy to use hub. The second point is where the trouble sits: this requires cash, knowhow, and manpower; I do not expect this sort of product to emerge from a kickstarter campaign. Apple has these, and I’ve been hoping for them to step up to the plate. But so far I’m not seeing it.
It seems Apple really isn’t doing HA as we know it. At this point they’re doing remote control. Perhaps they’ve done some development work on the wifi side to provide low power listening on devices like door locks. Their “secure solution” almost certainly isn’t referencing zwave security class, so maybe they’re providing IP to door lock vendors to implement locks the Apple way. Could they have built a chip that’s a direct sigma design competitor?
Their answer to a door lock that doesn’t hear the router may be to just extend the network with an airport express.
It will be interesting how they answer the most basic HA needs like “turn the front light on a dusk”. I don’t think they’ll release a separate hub because they would potentially face a lot of criticism on what would almost certainly be an immature product. Apple TV had to be a separate product. With the modest resource need of HA I don’t necessarily see the need for a separate device. For example, Philips proprietary zigbee will be handled in Homekit the way it is with Vera, with the proprietary controller on the local net. Zwave could be handled like Philips.
I’ve pretty much convinced myself that their strategic direction is putting Homekit HA controller in the airport extreme and time machine. Tons of physical space in the current extreme router.
I hate Apple with the fire of a thousand suns. But I am all for another serious competitor to the marketplace. And HA will become more mainstream, which means other players, who’ll keep each other competitive from a price standpoint and quality standpoint.
Home Kit provides seamless integration between accessories that support Apple’s Home Automation Protocol and iOS devices, allowing for new advances in home automation. By promoting a common protocol for home automation devices and making a public API available for configuring and communicating with those devices, Home Kit makes possible a marketplace where the app a user controls their home with doesn?t have to be created by the vendor who made their home automation accessories, and where home automation accessories from multiple vendors can all be integrated into a single coherent whole without those vendors having to coordinate directly with each other.
Home Kit allows third-party apps to perform three major functions:
Discover accessories and add them to a persistent, cross-device home configuration database.
Display, edit, and act upon the data in the home configuration database.
Communicate with configured accessories and services to get them to perform actions, such as turning on the lights in the living room.
The home configuration database is not only available to third-party apps, it?s also available to Siri. This allows users to give commands like, ?Siri, turn on the lights in the living room.? If a user creates a home configuration with logical groupings of accessories, services, and commands, Siri can make it very easy to accomplish sophisticated operations with voice control.
That’s actually quite promising… the home / zone / room / accessory / service hierarchy looks familiar. This would obviate the need for Siri proxy.
From EE Times, the everything but zwave MFi strategy:
Of the three, Marvell on Tuesday, June 3, became the first to launch a host of new IoT SoCs made for iOS devices.
Marvell is rolling out three separate versions of its IoT SoCs – for WiFi, Bluetooth, and ZigBee – by tightly coupling an MCU with each wireless chip, together with power management and memory on a single die. Marvell’s solutions come with what the company calls “EZ-connect” software enabling end systems to implement various HomeKit-specific protocols.
The clincher: Marvell’s IoT SoCs are already “MFi [Made For iPhone/iPad] certified,” according to Philip Poulidis, vice president and general manager of the Internet of Things business unit at Marvell.
Perhaps, then, there IS still a use for Vera: simply a Z-Wave / WiFi bridge (which is the way I’m going anyway.)
[quote=“dzmiller, post:34, topic:181409”]From EE Times, the everything but zwave MFi strategy:
Of the three, Marvell on Tuesday, June 3, became the first to launch a host of new IoT SoCs made for iOS devices.
Marvell is rolling out three separate versions of its IoT SoCs – for WiFi, Bluetooth, and ZigBee – by tightly coupling an MCU with each wireless chip, together with power management and memory on a single die. Marvell’s solutions come with what the company calls “EZ-connect” software enabling end systems to implement various HomeKit-specific protocols.
The clincher: Marvell’s IoT SoCs are already “MFi [Made For iPhone/iPad] certified,” according to Philip Poulidis, vice president and general manager of the Internet of Things business unit at Marvell.[/quote]
This is what bothers me. A hardware solution that once again is Apple specific. I have not need or desire for it.
edit: unless this is an SoC for the phone itself, then of course it woudl be Apple specific. This seems to be for controllers/devices though.
Apple needs new adventures. They are fighting to maintain their iOS share of phones and tablets. The music business is moving from purchasing from iTunes to subscriptions (hence the Beats purchase). The mythical Apple internet TV is still a myth. And the Apple share of the PC market hasn’t changed in decades. Where does Apple go from here? The where is to the "Internet of Things"which is where the Home Autimation market comes into play. Google sees the future and Nest was their sounding rocket. I don’t think Apple is interested in any particular HA protocol. This Homekit will just be something that corrals all the various protocols under one app. I do see them interested in looking for another avenue to spread iOS and associated services that can be sold.
Unfortunately it looks like they will exclude zwave as this technology is the primary Home Kit competitor today. Sigma design and the zwave alliance occupies the space apple wants for itself.
Unfortunately it looks like they will exclude zwave as this technology is the primary Home Kit competitor today. Sigma design and the zwave alliance occupies the space apple wants for itself.[/quote]
no way in hell Apple would ever adopt Z-Wave. It’s proprietary and not owned by Apple. I think any HA solution from Apple will utilize WiFi and Bluetooth LE.
But it could help to lower zwave device prices to remain an option…which would always be nice.