It might not grab as many headlines as Apple Intelligence or satellite messaging, but both the Apple Home app and the HomeKit standards underpinning it continue to be upgraded on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Apple's other devices. It means that if you want to put together a smart home inside the Apple ecosystem, you cana.
You'll find there aren't as many devices that work with Apple Home compared to Google Home or Amazon Alexa, which is partly down to Apple's stricter requirements on gadget compatibility: Devices must be able to offer basic functionality offline, for example, and have to meet security standards like encrypted cloud video storage.
However, the number of compatible gadgets is growing all the time—here's an official list. Apple Home also supports the Matter standard now, which should mean a bigger selection of smart home devices in the future—assuming manufacturers continue to adopt the agreed-upon protocols in their upcoming hardware.
As you would expect from Apple, everything is intuitive and straightforward, and should "just work" (at least in theory). This guide focuses on the Home app for iOS, but the equivalent app on iPads and Macs works in a very similar way.
Load up the Home app on your iPhone, and from the Home tab you can tap the + (plus) sign in the top right corner and then Add Accessory to add something new. The next steps will depend on what you're adding, but most of the time you'll be asked to scan a QR code on the device or just hold your iPhone close to it (check the instructions that came with the smart home gadget if you're not sure).
As you move through the steps of getting the device added, you'll be asked to give it a name and to specify which room of your home it's going to live in—if you don't already have any rooms set up, you can create one along the way. This is to make it easier to identify and manage your gadgets as you start to build your smart home.
When you're done, you'll see a widget for the new device on the Home tab in the Home app. Tap once to access the gadget functionality (to turn a smart light on or off), tap and hold and then pick Accessory Settings to configure it—you can change its name, the room its in, and more from this screen.
You can get at more options by tapping on the three dots in the top right corner of the Home tab. You can change which devices show up on this tab, view individual rooms, and change the settings for rooms too—everything from the wallpaper used on their specific screens to the devices grouped in that room.
You don't need to have a designated hub to run a smart home with Apple Home, but it helps: It means you can control your smart devices when you're away from your home wifi, and set up smart automations. A hub is also required if you want to add gadgets via the Matter standard. It's worth the investment if you want o level up the capabilities of your Apple Home system.
You can use an iPad, any HomePod or HomePod mini, or the 2nd-gen or 3rd-gen Apple TV 4K as a hub. However, if you need to support Matter devices and the associated Thread standard, you need the 2nd-gen HomePod, the HomePod mini, any version of the 2nd-gen Apple TV 4K, or the Ethernet-enabled 3rd-gen Apple TV 4K (not the wifi-only one).
At least the setup is pretty straightforward: When you add a HomePod or a HomePod mini to your wifi network, it automatically becomes the default Apple Home hub (and you can't actually change this—even if you have an Apple TV 4K too). If you have an Apple TV 4K box instead, open Settings, then Users and Accounts: As long as you're signed into iCloud with the same Apple account as you're using on your iPhone with the Home app, the hub is created automatically.
The iPad is the last option: This gives you control from outside the home, as long as the iPad is powered up, but you miss out on some of the latest Apple Home updates (including Matter support). If you want to use an iPad, open Settings, then tap on your name and iCloud, and make sure Home is enabled under Apps Using iCloud. Head back to Settings, then tap Home and Use this iPad as a Home Hub.
Once you're set up and comfortable with using Apple Home to manage your smart home, you can start to get more creative with what you do. One of the key advantages of using one app to control multiple smart home devices is that you're able to get them to trigger and respond to each other.
Scenes are basically groups of settings that get changed together. A good example is a nighttime scene, wherein you might switch off the heating and turn off all your smart lights with one button press. To create a scene, from the Home tab in the Home app, tap the + (plus) button in the top right corner and choose Add Scene. You can select from one of the templates, or start your own custom one.
Automations are a little more involved, and can be created from the Automation tab in the app. Tap the + (plus) button in the top right corner to get started: You'll be asked to choose a trigger for the automation, which could be someone arriving home, a sensor detecting something, or just a time of day, for example. After that, you need to decide what happens as a result.
So, for instance, you might have all the smart lights turn themselves off when your iPhone detects that you've left home. These scenes and automations can all be tweaked after you've created them, either via a long press on the Home tab or a tap on the Automation tab—each scene or automation has its own settings screen where you can make changes or delete it from the Home app.
