iOS Today 824 Transcript

Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on iOS Today, Rosemary Orchard and I, Micah Sargent, talk about new home stuff. Yes, stay tuned.

Rosemary Orchard [00:00:10]:
Podcasts you love. From people you trust.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:14]:
This is TWIT. This is iOS Today, episode 824, with Rosemary Orchard and me, Micah Sargent, recorded Tuesday, October 13th, 2026, for Thursday, October 15th, 2026. Home sweet HomeKit. Hello and welcome to iOS Today. I am Micah Sargent, and today we are talking about some fun stuff, but I have done this intro different than I normally do. How strange. This is iOS Today, the show where we talk all things iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, HomePodOS, and all the other OSes that Apple has to offer us. I am but one of your hosts.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:56]:
I've already said my name.

Rosemary Orchard [00:00:58]:
And I haven't yet said my name. My name is Rosemary Orchard, but you know, I was seen on a podcast. Rosemary was seen on a podcast. Micah was seen on a podcast. Not that we've seen these notifications before.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:11]:
I like it, I like it. Today we are talking about Home and the HomeKit. I thought it'd be a great time for us to check in with the Home app after being away, at least in talking about it for some time. And part of that is because Apple has announced its rumored new home devices that are both made by the company itself and then also what people are calling its second-party devices, which are made in partnership with LG and Schrader, I think. We'll talk about that though when we get to it. So first and foremost, let's talk about what's new in the Home app in iOS 27, and then we'll get into the, uh, the, the actual nitty-gritty of it all of what Apple announced today. Because, uh, Apple is— or Apple did roll out, um, some upgrades for HomeKit Secure Video, and part of that is a better means of providing notifications and understanding. So first For people who've used Amazon's Ring, you will be familiar with a feature that uses AI to better provide notifications.

Mikah Sargent [00:02:38]:
Apple now does generated video descriptions with HomeKit Secure Video so that users can quick— excuse me, this is a direct quote from Apple. Users can quickly understand what happened across a sequence of video clips even without watching them. So Rosemary was seen on a podcast along with Micah Sargent would potentially be a webcam or would be a HomeKit Secure Video camera that was watching this episode of iOS Today in someone's house, I guess, would be the way that that would pop up. You could also search in clips. So you can type in like package delivery and it will use the smarts to roll back and find where that happened. And then it also has what is called noteworthy clips. At the top of the search page, the Home app elevates noteworthy clips that users may want to review so they can quickly see important moments. Now, Interestingly, the way that Apple showed that is kind of funny.

Mikah Sargent [00:03:34]:
One of the noteworthy clips in this person's house was a mariachi band that for some reason showed up on that person's doorstep and was playing. I would also call that a noteworthy clip for sure. On top of that, you have real-time notification updates. And the way that it works is that it kind of takes notifications and it starts to send them to you, but then as things change, it will update the notification that already is there instead of popping up and saying, someone is walking to your door, someone is standing in front of your door, someone is moving their hand toward your door, someone is walking away from your door. It will kind of pop up with the original notification and then just add a little bit of detail after that so that it's very easy to do. It is— oh, those are the 2 kind of big features. improvements in iOS 27, of course, along with a higher price tag for some of this stuff to be able to have the intelligence running across your different cameras, which is unfortunate. But I wanted to ask you, Rosemary, first and foremost, do you still use the Home app every day? Like actually going into the Home app and interacting with your home that way?

Rosemary Orchard [00:04:57]:
Uh, no. So there's a couple of reasons for this. Uh, number one, I've recently moved, so, uh, that means that I'm in the process of setting up my smart home. Uh, and number two, my goal in life is to never have to manually control anything, uh, or at least never have to open the Home app for anything, or Home Assistant actually, uh, because the point of home automation is that things just happen, right? So what are the recent automations that I added to my home? was, uh, when you turn on the kitchen light, the under-the-counter lights turn on, and when you turn off the light, the under-the-counter lights turn off. But if the under-the-counter lights are already on, then they stay on when you turn the light on, and things like that. So my goal is to just have things be fluid and just feel right. And for that reason, I've done things like I've installed smart light switches in my house instead of smart light bulbs, so people can still use the switch, uh, and then when they turn the light off, the automation can still turn it on. For example, if somebody arrives home, it's after dark, it will automatically turn on the kitchen light because that's a room we're almost certainly going to be going into to drop things off, you know, dump water bottles, things like that.

Rosemary Orchard [00:06:06]:
So I don't open the Home app all that much, if I'm being perfectly honest. It's just one of those things. But I do like the summaries that I get. And I have realised that I am using some very outdated technology. And Up until now, it's never really been an issue, specifically my cameras, that they are old. Because first of all, HomeKit didn't support any more than 1080p anyway for a while. So, you know, until actually iOS 27. So it didn't matter that the camera wasn't amazing because quite frankly, all it was doing is when we were out of the house, it was letting me know which part of the sofa the dog was snoozing on.

Rosemary Orchard [00:06:47]:
Or if he got very upset about something, then it would show me, you know, that he was bouncing around the living room. But other than that, you know, I've not had to do much in the Home app. So I need to continue setting up my smart home. That is the next goal that I have. And then maybe I'll be using the HomeKit app more. Maybe not. I find that nowadays, especially with the remote being automatically surfaced on the lock screen for Apple TV, I don't even go into the remote through the Home app anymore because it's just magically doing the right thing. So that's me.

Rosemary Orchard [00:07:18]:
What about you, Micah? How much do you find you use the Home app?

Mikah Sargent [00:07:21]:
So I certainly do wish that I had the automated, automated smart home. And there was a time when I did, but I have moved, you know, enough and just kind of rebuilding my smart home out is a lot of work. And so I have done it, you know, piece by piece. Little by little, making certain automations happen automatically and other things that I control physically. Now, most of the control that I do, I don't use the Home app for. I use Home Assistant. And so right now on my Stream Deck, I have a little button I can press and inside I've got access to a bunch of controls for all of the lighting that's here in my office in particular. And so I can, you know, control individual lights and do all of that, but that's happening via Home Assistant.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:22]:
I do launch the Home app when I am making adjustments to lighting, particularly at night, and that is still just mostly a holdover from at one point using my voice to do so, so I didn't have to launch the app, and being too disappointed at the time with Siri's responses to what I was asking of it. And it Essentially failing me, so I kind of gave up on that. And now it's sort of muscle memory, so to speak, for me to just do it this way. But all that said, still think it's a really a really powerful app. And the sad thing is how there's that narrative that it was not a success, and that it continues to be something that's not a success, or that people you know can't get devices. That's just not the case. Like there's a lot of stuff out there that works. with Apple Home and now this adds onto it.

Mikah Sargent [00:09:21]:
So with that outta the way, we do have new functionality that comes as part of this, including what we talked about earlier, those features, but also there's been better support for Thread and Matter. There's energy monitoring for smart plugs. Mm-hmm. So that's something that I really like that is now built into the Home app. And so you can keep an eye on things that way. Before streaming was limited to 1080p, it's now 4K streaming. And it also does, oh, the ability to, this was not something you could do before. What? Update the Apple TV from the Home app? How handy.

Mikah Sargent [00:10:08]:
Getting all those updates.

Rosemary Orchard [00:10:08]:
This is actually genuinely something that for me personally is very useful because I'm part of 3 HomeKit homes. My home, my parents' home in the UK, and my parents' home in France, which, you know, it's a barn that they're renovating, but they have an Apple TV and they have a smart home. My parents are really bad at actually remembering that the Apple TV is a much better TV experience than whatever Samsung junk is on their Samsung TV. So they just don't really use the Apple TV all that much, but it is their HomeKit hub. So I actually am now able to tell their Apple TVs to update through HomeKit on a regular basis. I just pop in, I have a reminder set for the first of every month just to go in and double check to make sure that it's up to date because that tends to keep things online significantly more. And that is also something I would suggest be a first point that you check if you're thinking that, hey, my Apple Home is kind of weird, or like sometimes things aren't working. Make sure that everything that could be a HomeKit hub, Apple TV, HomePod, HomePod mini is up to date because if it's not up to date, that could be your problem.

Rosemary Orchard [00:11:11]:
So yeah, that's something I'm very glad that they've now added as a feature in the Home app.

Mikah Sargent [00:11:17]:
Now let's talk about what's new. Apple, of course, has, we've talked about, I think on this show, we talked about the rumors that Apple would be releasing some new products for the home. And that has happened. Apple, let's start with the Home View. So the Home View is, I think, an adorable little device. It's sort of a round, it looks like an app icon essentially. And you can get it where it's attached to a speaker, which we'll talk about in a moment, or you can get it as a wall-mounted option, which somehow costs the same as the one that has the speaker. I do find that odd.

Mikah Sargent [00:12:06]:
But let's get into what you, what you have. So this is Apple's, we've heard about Apple planning on doing an iPad sort of HomePod mix, and that's really what this is. It's Apple's first take on the smart home display, so to speak. The smart home display that we've seen from other companies, that's what this is, as opposed to an iPad that can also do it. It's got a 7-inch Liquid Retina screen, so very, you know, sharp. A18 chip, and if you get it with the speaker base, then it is it comes in, uh, silver, starlight, rose pink, or space gray. Of course, I got space gray in this case, uh, or the wall-mounted option which comes in space gray and silver. Um, the base and the, the bass speaker and the, the display, there's a hinge so you can kind of move it up and back.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:09]:
Uh, again, with either way, $299. Um, if you do get the Uh, the, the wall-mounted one, then Apple also sells you separately, um, different means of mounting it. So it's still—

Rosemary Orchard [00:13:29]:
By Schneider, I believe.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:31]:
Yeah, it's still $300 on its own. And then to mount it, uh, you can use the Power Mount USB-C wall connector. So this is a sort of, um, It's like a it's like a puck that goes on the wall that has a USB-C port kind of running not port but plug coming out of it, and so then you just put the the the home view on it. There's also the power mount AC wired, which of course means that it is wired into your wall, which is handy. And then that one is is eighty bucks. The one that it can I ask you something, Rosemary? Is Quid Is quid the same thing as bucks? Like, is that— is quid—

Rosemary Orchard [00:14:15]:
Yeah, yeah, it's a slang for pounds.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:18]:
Okay, excellent. So yeah, then in the same way that, yeah, uh, bucks. Okay, yay! That's what I thought from context clues, but I never— I always forget to ask. Anyway, so, uh, $60 for the, the USB-C version, $80 for the one that actually, um, hardwires into your, uh, your wall, and then there's the Power over Ethernet version that'll be coming out later. That one's $130. So if you get the, um, wall-mounted one, you could end up spending quite a bit more money on that. Uh, so in that way, I don't know about you, Rose, but I think I would recommend if you're going to get one, the non-wall-mounted one. But what do you think?

Rosemary Orchard [00:15:03]:
Yeah. I mean, so my biggest issue with wall-mounted tablets, because I've been looking at doing this for years, starting with the Magic Mirror, which was a Raspberry Pi. project where you could put like a screen behind, uh, two-way glass or one-way glass, and then it would sort of like project onto the glass, and then you could look at yourself in the morning on the way out the door. But also you could see, um, you know, like your weather, the next train time, all of those things, or if your train was canceled or there was lots of traffic on your way to work. And my biggest problem with this is, uh, I don't have power in my walls. Like, this is, this is just like not a thing that I have, uh, and I've never had this where I can just drill into a wall and pull a power cable. And for a lot of people, that is so far out of the scope of their home DIY capabilities, especially people who don't live in countries with 120 volts. Like, 120 volts is dangerous enough, but when you get to 240 volts, uh, yeah, that's, that, that's a do not pass go if you do not know what you're doing.

Rosemary Orchard [00:16:04]:
Like, don't even think about it because that is is, you know, a one-way trip somewhere not very pleasant that you're not coming back from, should anything go wrong with that. And everywhere that I wanted to mount one of these things, I just don't have power. Like, even having, like, a regular plug to plug into is an issue. Admittedly, the last place I lived in was very short on plugs. I had 3 sockets in the entirety of my bedroom, and one of them was inside of a wardrobe. So, you know, there was absolutely no possibility of mounting something there. And I feel like this is gonna be a problem for a lot of people. The place that they're going to want to put this sort of thing, uh, there could be existing power lines there that they can't interfere with, such as light switches, or there isn't power there at all.

Rosemary Orchard [00:16:45]:
And this is just, to me, the, the biggest problem with this. And as much as it's cool to be like, oh wait, so this isn't going to take up space on my kitchen counter or something, you know, which is at a premium, I will admit it. I feel like the kitchen counter experience might actually be better for most people And let's just say I'm going to be having a discussion with my other half later about whether or not the vases that we currently have on like a little like open corner unit in our kitchen are actually that worthwhile. Or maybe we should get one of these guys on a speaker and pop it up there because there's already power underneath it. So we can just run a cable down underneath and have it there and show all the data. However, I don't know if this is necessarily 100% the best solution for us, but I would say I would say for the vast majority of people, you should be looking at one of these with a speaker because also otherwise you're gonna want a HomePod anyway, probably. Yeah. So yeah, I personally think the one with the speaker built in is probably the best choice.

Mikah Sargent [00:17:41]:
I agree. I should mention that pre-orders are now available. So if you haven't done that yet, now's the time to hop on it for sure. If you want one, I mean. It doesn't ship until November 13th in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India. Not currently sold in the EU. It does offer some interesting features. First and foremost, it'll recognize up to 6 people by face, and each of those people gets their own independent home screen.

Mikah Sargent [00:18:14]:
That means with it you get different face options, a little bit like the Apple Watch. So Photos, Flow, the fun Snoopy thing, something called Home Modules, and something called Home Camera, which will show you up to— the Home Camera will show you up to 9 camera feeds at once. Of course, Siri AI, which is, you know, the latest functionality from Siri that you have in other places. It does have FaceTime with Center Stage built in as well. It has intercom just like your other HomePods do, recipes, hands-free timers built in, Find My, and then the smokes and CO alarm sound alerts. So what that is is, um, basically you can set it so that each and every one of your HomePod, uh, or home devices is listening for that very specific signal that comes from a smoke alarm or a CO alarm. And then even if you're out of the home, you'll get a push notification to your phone.

Rosemary Orchard [00:19:15]:
Mm-hmm.

Mikah Sargent [00:19:15]:
I've had this happen before. It was great to know what's going on. Um, it works with, of course, Apple Home and Matter accessories. And yeah, the speaker functionality means that you've got another, if you've got other HomePods, then you've got that as well. So that is, I don't know, like I definitely ordered one because I wanted to make sure I could try this and see how it works and, you know, figure out where I wanna put it. The, I forgot to mention that there are 4 beamforming microphones so that it will, you know, hear you from farther away and can kind of reduce background sound while you're doing it. And we'll see as far as the actual sound goes, you know, that's the one thing that I'm, um, kind of interested in is if they're, how it compares to a HomePod and a HomePod mini, um, where of course we know that the original HomePod especially was highly over-engineered, but in a really nice way, I've got 2, uh, First-gen HomePods, and I you I don't ever want to lose them. I think they're great.

Mikah Sargent [00:20:33]:
Did you were you surprised? Not surprised that this was not the personality sort of incorporated device that was supposed to be able to like you know nod its head and look around and things like that. Did that did did Were you expecting that when this device was announced? No. No.

Rosemary Orchard [00:21:00]:
I was not expecting that at all because as much as that sounds like a really cool idea, I have heard people talk about their personas on visionOS and how sometimes it struggles with things. It comes across as kind of weird and creepy. I specifically remember Mike Hurley talking about the issues it was having with his facial hair. And that just being a weird thing. And I feel like if you're going to be like, have something that's like moving and reacting to you like a human does, it's gonna freak people out unless it's actually like looking like a human. And the fact that visionOS still can't quite nail the personas for people, I think they're called personas. My brain is just using that word right now. I think so too, yeah.

Rosemary Orchard [00:21:47]:
Representations of people. Yeah, I don't— I never thought that was gonna happen, uh, really, because it just sounded weird and creepy to me. Uh, and I don't know, I don't know if other people also felt that way, that it might have been a bit weird and creepy, because yeah, it definitely could have been. Uh, but no, it— I just never really thought it was gonna happen because I, I think that there's also culturally, like, between places this, the way that people communicate is not necessarily the same. Now, generally nodding and shaking your head are understood to mean the same thing around the world. But there are all sorts of things where it's just— cultural context is everything. Yeah. Context is the thing that can make AI great or terrible because it doesn't have enough of it, or it's got too much of it.

Rosemary Orchard [00:22:32]:
That can also be a thing. And I feel like this would have just been too prone to problems. I do like the fact that there are 6 users supported on Home View. I don't know I don't know many households personally that have more than 6 people living in it who would be using something like this. I do know a couple of households with more than 6 people in, but 2 of them are sort of like 4 and under. And I, I think especially if you go for one of these that's like on a counter or wall-mounted, it's going to be below the height of a 4-year-old anyway. So that's not really too much of an issue. But yeah, did you think that that was actually going to happen, Micah? What were you— were you excited by the idea?

Mikah Sargent [00:23:06]:
I was Hopeful, not for the, not for any sort of. I mean, I don't. I would not have the creepiness concern personally, but it's totally understandable for people that it is creepy, and I get why it is. I wanted it for FaceTime to be more than just center stage, to be able to move because I'm moving around in a kitchen and doing things, and being able to talk via FaceTime, I thought would be a nice. Nice add-on, but I did not expect, um, that it would, you know, I, I didn't need it to necessarily be a full-on, um, Pixar lamp or anything. Uh, but I thought that there might be some articulation going on with this that would, that could end up being kind of handy. So yeah, especially to be able to like, if it's facing one way and I'm, uh, at the sink and I want to see what's the next step in a recipe, uh, to have it kind of turned toward me so I can read it. But I suppose that's where people would say, well, that's what voice is for.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:11]:
I can just read it out. So yeah.

Rosemary Orchard [00:24:14]:
Yeah.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:15]:
All right. So it wasn't just the Home View that Apple announced. It also announced the new Apple TV 4K, a new HomePod mini, and a slew of accessories that we'll get to as well. But let's start with the Apple TV 4K. It continues to be called the Apple TV 4K. And in its latest rendition. It has some updates including, uh, the new Siri AI support that runs much better on it. Uh, it has actual microphones built into the Apple TV itself, the point being that you can talk to it, um, without needing to, you know, interact with it elsewhere.

Mikah Sargent [00:25:01]:
It is a new type of, um, of Siri AI on it, which is more full screen. And I think that, you know, part of that is it requires a more capable chip to be able to do so. So you can say things like, what Apple TV shows won at the Emmy Awards last year? You know, give me more award-winning comedies. Where was Pluribus filmed? Is this appropriate for a 15-year-old? That kind of a thing as you're watching. Those far-field microphones again mean that you can do the sound recognition of talking to your AI assistant. And it has a, oh, an A19 chip is built in as well. And the new Siri remote looks a lot like the one before, but now it has a little onboard speaker somewhere and also has precision finding via Find My. So right now I've got— I've got a I've got a case that has a little air tag in it that my my Siri remote right now slots into, and that's how I you know have have found it whenever it's fallen into the couch cushions.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:20]:
But this basically builds all that in, so you don't need anything extra. And then the other last feature that I'll mention is that it also has let me find it again the ability. To pair with multiple HomePods to create a 4-speaker surround sound. So it works with HomePod mini 2 and the HomePod 2nd generation. It will intelligently recognize the position of those speakers in the house in order to do audio timing and levels that are calibrated. And Again, it's not just the HomePod mini, it's also the HomePod. So the, you need to have it match. So front speakers need to be the same model and back speakers need to be the same model.

Mikah Sargent [00:27:15]:
But in doing so, or they call them rear speakers, but in doing so, it will give you that surround sound experience. Tell me about your Apple TV use and if you are drawn in by this latest Apple TV 4K.

Rosemary Orchard [00:27:33]:
Oh, don't, don't, don't mess with me, Micah. I want this. I don't want the price tag, but I do want the new Apple TV. I actually have a use case for a new Apple TV. We are putting a Samsung Frame TV on the wall in the kitchen and replacing a whiteboard because we've digitized what we used to have on the whiteboard. We've still got loads of space for magnetic things. So, you know, wedding invitations and all that stuff can go on the fridge. That's fine.

Rosemary Orchard [00:27:58]:
There's a good place for them. But all the Lists that used to be on there and then they get messed with because, you know, people will be walking past and their sleeve will rub on it and something. That's all been digitized into a shared system now, which is very easy for us to access and see, which is great. So we're putting a Samsung Frame TV on the wall and I was there like, ah, I need to order another Apple TV because we have 2 Apple TVs already, one downstairs and one in our bedroom, but we don't have a 3rd Samsung Frame. Samsung Frame. We don't have a 3rd Apple TV for the Samsung Frame. So yeah, they're going, well, I need to order that. And obviously I'll wait until today.

Rosemary Orchard [00:28:35]:
And now all the refurbs are out of stock because as much as I love this, I love the fact it's got built-in microphones. I love the fact that there's a speaker built into the Siri remote and all that jazz. I personally don't think that that is strictly necessary for my particular use case. I was already going to put a HomePod in the kitchen. And I think I'd like to have a separate HomePod in the kitchen anyway because I don't necessarily want the Apple TV like taking cooking timers as a thing. That's just, that's a little out of left field for me. That would feel a little bit odd. I wouldn't deny it could be useful if it could surface it and like overlay it when there's 30 seconds to go on a timer, like in the corner or something.

Rosemary Orchard [00:29:15]:
But I don't think I need this necessarily. That said, If I can buy the remote separately and connect it to an older Apple TV, yeah, the amount of times that I have to use the finding thing, which at the moment isn't great, and I have multiple times considered adding an AirTag to the Apple TV remote so that I can find it again. Yeah, I would like to see if I could get that new Apple TV Siri remote and connect it to my existing Apple TVs. But other than that, I think I'm not in any particular rush to upgrade. I'm gonna keep an eye on the refresh rate store. So, uh, yes, and somebody, uh, Scooter X, has just posted in the chat which Apple TV, uh, is the new $59 Siri remote compatible with. Because quite frankly, $60 to upgrade the remote for precision finding and a built-in speaker, worth it. Like, obviously it costs more than an AirTag, but also USB-C charging.

Rosemary Orchard [00:30:11]:
One of my, uh, remotes uses Lightning as the charger. Yeah. I, I would, I would like that. So yeah, it looks like it's gonna be compatible. So thank you very much for that link, ScooterX. I will be getting a new Apple TV remote for the upstairs bedroom for sure.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:27]:
All right, let us continue along here with the updates and improvements and new products. The Apple TV 4K is joined by the new second-generation HomePod mini called the HomePod mini 2. It is— Apple says that the speakers or the music system, that the audio system I should say, is improved and that it also offers a fun little— goodness, I forget what they call the actual— where is my HomePod news? There it is. All right. There's a new feature that makes it so that the sort of the screen on top does it in these colors that are color matched to the album cover, which I think is kind of cute. The big thing, of course, is the immersive audio experiences, being able to use that newer chip, the S10, to pair with the Apple TV 4K of the latest generation, and also The HomePod Mini serving as a speaker for your Mac. It's a— now this, people might be confused because technically up to this point you could use HomePod Mini speakers as speakers for your Mac, but it was a little clumsy and not exactly a simple process to do and not baked in at the level that Apple is now baking it in. Um, so this makes it, um, it can take full advantage of what the HomePod Mini speakers can do.

Mikah Sargent [00:32:16]:
And also they are color matched to the options that the iMac has in terms of color. And by the way, the feature I was looking for, Sound Glow. So the top of the HomePod Mini will turn into this sort of pulsing, uh, color that reacts to the music and is also in the colors of whatever is playing, uh, live on your device. You can also, with soundscapes like rain, it has a special animation as well. And it has all of the necessary stuff built in to make it a home hub as part of your HomePod— or excuse me, your HomeKit setup. With it, you have the $149, and it is available for Purchase, not purchase, but available for pre-orders today. It will be available in stores Friday, October 30th. So sooner than the Home View.

Mikah Sargent [00:33:23]:
Any thoughts on the new HomePod Mini 2?

Rosemary Orchard [00:33:29]:
On Wednesdays, it can wear pink. So, you know, that is a thing. One thing worth noting here, Folks, Siri AI will be available on in English on HomePod Mini 2 via future software update in the US, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and the UK. So Siri AI is not going to be something that comes out for any other country in the immediate future that Apple is willing to talk about, and also it's not quite here yet. But I suspect it will come out with the release of the HomePod Mini 2. would certainly hope so. But yeah, just, just worth noting that, for example, if you're in France, for example, or French-speaking Canada, and you're after the HomePod Mini 2 to use with Siri AI, that Siri AI is not gonna be available right off the bat, and it may be some time. So just keep that in mind.

Rosemary Orchard [00:34:22]:
It's still gonna be a great device otherwise. I love my 2 HomePod Minis that I have there on either side of the headboard in the bedroom. So when the TV's playing, the sound is coming out right next to our heads, um, or, you know, as I'm tidying, then, you know, I'm usually at that end of the bed rather than right in front of the TV. So it's the HomePod Minis with the Apple TV are a great combination and I absolutely love them.

Mikah Sargent [00:34:44]:
And then last but certainly not least, Apple's second-party devices. Uh, so this is something that people have been sort of calling these devices, uh, because They are made by 2 third parties, LG Electronics and Schneider Electric, but they are part of what's called the Apple Home Collection. And so designed with Apple and have the sort of look and feel of, I would say, an Apple product for sure. And there are quite a few that will begin becoming available in December, and then other accessories will be available in 2027. These accessories, they work in the same way that you would be used to with other Works with Apple Home devices, but they are just more directly integrated in terms of ease of use and ease of setup. You just have to tap Tap the accessory with your iPhone and tap the setup button, and then it all kind of works. You don't have to have a separate app, which is nice. And there are so many options.

Mikah Sargent [00:36:01]:
Every camera can capture up to 2.5K revolution— revolution? No, resolution video. They will, through Apple's HomeKit Secure Video, give you the ability to detect faces and pets and vehicles and packages. There's an LG video doorbell. It has 2 cameras on it, so a view for both visitors and packages. There's LG's floodlight cam, which of course has a floodlight built in, dual floodlights that activate with motion detection, an outdoor camera and an indoor camera. And the indoor camera will automatically tilt upward and downward to adjust the view when users check in on the home. And then it tilts back down to stop monitoring as soon as the first member of the household returns. So that paired with the ability to actually take it physically and tilt it down, it will stop looking around the room and you can sort of get this visual representation that, hey, I'm not paying attention to anything anymore.

Mikah Sargent [00:37:09]:
Works with iCloud Plus. That's 10 days worth of event video history. And of course, that Apple Intelligence addition that we talked about earlier, if you have those features on your account, there's also built-in storage. So even if Wi-Fi goes down, it can continue to capture and hold footage, which is nice. Um, and it says there are improvements to the way footage is captured and stored, uh, to ensure that detected moments aren't missed during a network outage. So being able to see that is, I think, very handy. Um, as well as, uh, the home access option. So a smart deadbolt lock.

Mikah Sargent [00:37:48]:
Oh, that's cool. That uses the ultra-wideband technology. So as you approach, it can start to unlock, which is nice. A new thermostat, actually 2 thermostats that will give you— I think they're very simple thermostats, but, you know, they're nice. Just controlling your HVAC system. Yay. Very much, I think, resemble what you see from some of the other companies as well. And And they have built-in like temperature and humidity sensors that are part of it.

Mikah Sargent [00:38:23]:
I wouldn't be surprised to see more of these devices that are specific to Apple's kind of second-party option rolling out. But the LG Video Doorbell, basically we're looking at prices anywhere from $200 to about $400. Depending. So like the flood cam light is $399.95. The LG smart thermostat does have the little temperature sensors that are sort of like satellite devices to help inform what the temperature is, which is one of the really handy things about the Ecobee.

Rosemary Orchard [00:39:03]:
Yes.

Mikah Sargent [00:39:04]:
Very much like that. So you are able to get those as well. Yeah. That category, I think, is a little perplexing that it's taken this long for Apple to Sort of get into the space but not really get into the space.

Rosemary Orchard [00:39:22]:
I mean, but they've been doing this for a long time, right? Haven't they, Mike? It used to be the same back in the old days where you'd have to go and buy software on a CD. Then only certain things would be available in the Apple Store. If you went to the Apple Store, you could purchase, you know, I think QuarkXPress was one of those and things like that. You know, the things that weren't made by Apple, they're very select with who they partner with. You can't just walk in there and be like, oh, and I'm going to buy everything from any brand who has paid us enough money for shelf space. It's always been a very select partnership. You know, not every single product that Belkin makes is suitable for, you know, the iPhone, for example, is available in the Apple Store. There's only a certain number of exclusive products.

Rosemary Orchard [00:40:05]:
So, yeah, it's one of these things where I don't see this as crazy. And also, Nothing here that they're talking about is actually completely groundbreaking and new and revolutionary. For example, I have a really ancient Eufy pan and tilt camera, and one of the features it has is when you, when you want it to, it can turn off and it just rolls back into its own head. That's the best way I can describe it. The little ball rolls back inside the enclosure at the back, so the camera is literally pointing at plastic, so it's literally not going to see anything. And so, you know, all of of these things, none of it's completely groundbreaking, but it's the fact that Apple have chosen to partner with these people to talk about it and then also to actually sell it in the Apple Store. I will just take one moment to mention, folks, Apple are talking a lot about Matter at the moment and there's a lot of Matter devices out there and you can buy them and they work with HomeKit and it's fabulous. But not everything that a product that has Matter support can do will surface in HomeKit because it's not about about the, the product having Matter support.

Rosemary Orchard [00:41:06]:
It's about the feature having Matter support. And things like energy monitoring, for example, that's only recently come into Matter. So that might not fully make its way through into HomeKit. So just keep an eye out for that and make sure that all the features that you want are supported in HomeKit if you're looking at buying some fancy new hardware, just in case. I don't want anyone to be disappointed and feel left out because, you know, their, their HomeKit setup is not working as they hoped and expected.

Mikah Sargent [00:41:31]:
That is a very good point. And so yeah, that's something to keep in mind. So yeah, that is a look at the new stuff that Apple has announced. And let us continue along to— I can hear the music. It's time for Shortcuts Corner. Shortcuts Corner. Oh, welcome to Shortcuts Corner. You caught me.

Mikah Sargent [00:42:12]:
This is the part of the show where you write in with your shortcuts requests and Rosemary Orchard, our shortcuts expert, provides a response. This week, because we're talking about Home Suite HomeKit, let's instead discuss some things that you can do that take advantage of your HomeKit home.

Rosemary Orchard [00:42:34]:
And so I'm just gonna remind folks of some of the basic things that you can do. Obviously, you can create automations for when people arrive home, when people leave home, a certain time of day occurs, which also includes things like sunrise and sunset, somebody doing something like turning a light on or turning a light off, or, you know, sensor things. So for example, smoke being detected, maybe turn all the lights on when the smoke's detected. Last person leaves home, turn everything off. Be careful with that one, folks, especially if you've got like energy monitoring plugs, which is what you're using them for, not for smart home control. But one of the things that I find is slightly problematic here, and I'm going to use my living room camera because I don't have that many devices set up here yet, as my sensor, is, you know, I can only do certain things. So for example, I've just said, hey, when my living room camera detects motion, turn off the Apple TV. Well, what if I want to do 2 different things? What if I want to do something during daytime and something else at nighttime? And that is something that's kind of difficult to do with just HomeKit.

Rosemary Orchard [00:43:40]:
What I need to do is I need to convert it to a shortcut. Okay. So our trigger is already set up. So that is something detects motion. And so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to add an if statement. And this is where shortcuts is really, really useful. So what we're going to do is we're going to get the current date and we just want the time and we're going to go with time format and we are just going to leave it as short. Now you need to make sure, folks, that this is, uh, going to be 24-hour time.

Rosemary Orchard [00:44:09]:
So actually, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go in here and I'm just going to add a format date option. Okay. And we're just going to say, hey, format the date. And we're going to say We format the current date and we're going to format it as custom. And then in here, what we can do is we can say HH:MM, and the HH needs to be uppercase. This is really important because this gives us 24 hours time, 24-hour time. And you know what, I'm going to make this really simple. I'm just going to use the hour.

Rosemary Orchard [00:44:38]:
I'm going to ignore the minutes. If you want to use half hours and so on in this sort of automation, then you can. It's just a little bit trickier. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to select this. I'm going to say, hey, if HH is, uh, and I'm just going to specify that that is actually the type and scroll down and make that a number. And this is really important because this changes the options available to us in the if selector. And I can say, hey, if it is less than 7, okay, so that is before 7 o'clock in the morning, or— and then I'm going to select my formatted date again, and I'm going to select this, I'm going to change my type, and I'm going to scroll down, change that to a number again, and then I'm going to say is greater than or equal to 22, which is 10 PM. Okay, you subtract 12 from the number if it is greater than 12 to give you what that is in 12-hour time.

Rosemary Orchard [00:45:33]:
So if it is one of these, then— and this is where unfortunately, because I don't actually have all the hardware set up right now, it's a little bit difficult, um, but you can say, hey, control your home. And this is where you would do something like set your lights to be red and 5%, because you, you want lights to come on when they detect motion and it's really dark, but you don't want it being really, really bright, uh, and, you know, potentially blinding you, messing with your night vision, things like that. Which is why if you've got color-changing light bulbs, red lights at night are a really, really great option. Uh, and then the The next thing you do is I'm just going to duplicate this. I'm going to set this down here. And this is where you would say, oh, now, and also set this one to be super bright, 100% or whatever it is. Or you could also use a scene. If I could spell the word scene, that would be so much better.

Rosemary Orchard [00:46:24]:
Instead, I used that. So yeah. So what you do is you just, you set the scene and then you choose your scene. Now, I, as you can see, I've got very few things in HomeKit. Moment. I'm still experimenting with my setup, figuring out exactly what I want to surface in HomeKit so I can control it with my voice. But this is a really great way of allowing yourself to do different things at different times. Another example of what you could do with this is you can actually check the weather conditions.

Rosemary Orchard [00:46:52]:
Okay, so you can get your weather here and you can get your current weather. And I'm just gonna delete all of these actions here and delete everything inside of it. So I'm gonna get the weather. And I am going to then add another if, and I'm going to say if, and then we say temperature is, and then we say is greater than or equal to, and let's put in 20 degrees Celsius. Okay. Actually, you know what? Let's make it more than 28 degrees. Then this is where you can say, hey, so for example, this could go, this automation could happen at 8 o'clock in the morning. And I could say, hey, it's going to be over 28 degrees today.

Rosemary Orchard [00:47:31]:
That's important. This means that we should actually close the blinds, close the curtains, close all the shades, things like that, because we don't want the house to get too hot. So we're actually going to close all of these off so that the house doesn't get too hot. But otherwise, we're going to either open them or leave them open. And this is where you can use, you know, either scenes to control it or you can individually target certain devices. places. And I personally find that this sort of automation is where converting a HomeKit automation to Shortcuts excels. It allows you to do things like pull in weather data, even if you don't have a weather station.

Rosemary Orchard [00:48:04]:
Now, if you want weather stations, there are plenty of HomeKit compatible ones. I personally own a Netatmo one, but also you can just pull in the weather data from Apple's Weather app and get that information in here. You could also say, uh, you know, you've got the You've got the weather, instead of the temperature, you could say, what is the high of today? Because that is actually maybe better. What is the high going to be? If the high is gonna be above 28 degrees, or if the low is gonna be below 20 degrees, then do something else. Or if the low is gonna be below 5 degrees, then maybe actually what we need to do is we need to turn on a couple of extra fans to help circulate air to make sure that all the warm air gets pumped around the house, things like that. So there's so much you can do with HomeKit. And I find that converting things to Shortcuts is where where automations for me actually become very powerful. It's very all very well and good just turning on the lights when you get home in the evening, but maybe you actually want the lights to turn on differently if it's evening versus afternoon, because maybe you don't need lights in the afternoon.

Rosemary Orchard [00:49:07]:
So there we go. That's, that's some of the automations you can do.

Mikah Sargent [00:49:10]:
Lovely. We love, love, love to see it. Um, alrighty folks, if you have Shortcuts Corner requests that you would to ask Rosemary about, you can email us. iosToday@twit.tv is how you get in touch, and we'd love to hear from you. Moving along to our final segment, it's time for our App Caps. These are the apps or gadgets we use— we've been using for a long time, or maybe this is the first time we're telling you about them. And in honor of the HomeKit episode, I thought I'd talk about one of my favorite apps that I use for my smart home. It's called HomePass for HomeKit and Matter.

Mikah Sargent [00:49:49]:
HomePass is a really cool app that has figured out all of the ins and outs of Apple's HomeKit scanning, tagging, reading process. And I have to tell you, it saved my bacon a few times when I used to have a camera. It eventually died, but I believe it was also made by LG. And it, no, it was made by Logitech. And it, um, was so old that it didn't have HomeKit originally, but then I got a firmware update that gave it HomeKit. But the firmware update generated a code for the camera that you had to write down somewhere or else you would not be able to access it in the future if it ever got reset. And my silly self was like, oh, I'm going to do this right in this moment and get it all set up. And I wrote it down, but did I remember to save that piece of paper or save that text file? No.

Mikah Sargent [00:50:47]:
So what HomePass does is it saves all of your codes for your HomeKit setup, and I was able to go back in, find the code, and set that camera up again. What's really cool too is that it will write NFC tags so that you— if a device doesn't currently have an NFC capability for just tapping to pair with HomeKit, you can give it that. And so I've set that up especially with my home hubs, replacing the, the QR code or the, the HomeKit code on the back of the hub that usually I've mounted somewhere with a small NFC tag on the front of it. And so yes, HomePass is just this great sort of database of all of your HomeKit codes and you can give it access to your HomeKit home so that all of your devices get listed. And then you can just go down one by one by one by one and make sure that you've got that record of them. You can export that record, save it somewhere. It's just a really handy app. And the developer makes other apps for the home as well that are well worth checking out, including, I believe it's called Home View, I think is what it's called.

Mikah Sargent [00:51:58]:
Maybe called Home Cam though. But it's for the Apple TV and gives you access to view all of your HomeKit cameras. Rosemary Orchard, what is your AppCap this week?

Rosemary Orchard [00:52:11]:
Well, my AppCap, Micah, I just pivoted. I changed Sorry, sorry folks, I had to because you did HomePass and I just wanted to throw out a mention for Signals for HomeKit. So Signals for HomeKit allows you to signal things with HomeKit. Yeah, crazy folks. It combines Shortcuts and it combines HomeKit, so you can then use it to, for example, flash your lights and then restore your lights to whatever they were supposed to be doing. And so one of the ways that I have successfully previously use this was the Get Up feature. And that feature would go, hey, you just hit snooze on your alarm. And this is something that you can do with a regular Shortcuts automation, folks.

Rosemary Orchard [00:52:50]:
And then it passes that along and it runs the signal, which goes, hi, I am as bright and blindingly white and obnoxious as I possibly can be. And I'm just going to flash the lights repeatedly at you and then restore them to what they were. I currently don't have that I have another person living in my house who is in the same bedroom. In fact, there's 2 other people in the house, but only one of them is in the same bedroom as me. Um, and I feel like that might not be the friendliest thing to do to a partner, but it's great if you're single and have issues getting up in the morning. Um, an alternative option would be flashing lights because you need to put the bins out for recycling or things like that. Oh, yes. And stuff like that.

Rosemary Orchard [00:53:32]:
So making sure that you're not disturbing that anyone else. you don't miss trash day and all those things. And there's so many things that you can do of, you know, connected to your own personal phone automations and triggers. Like for example, when you open the YouTube app, then maybe like flash the lights in red at you to be like, maybe you shouldn't be checking YouTube right now. Maybe you're supposed to be working because it's between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM or something like that. You know, there's, there's so many choices. But yeah, Signals for HomeKit, very, very cheap. I think I paid $199 for it.

Rosemary Orchard [00:54:03]:
It may have gone up slightly in price since then, but honestly, created by a very friendly developer who I've had many, many chats with over time. And yeah, I think it's an in-app purchase ranging between $499 to $1,299 depending on which version it is that you want to unlock, but it has family sharing. So, you know, you can always share it with everybody in your family, which is great. And it does work on a wall-mounted iPad. IPad, which has a battery, which might be better for you than a wall-mounted HomeView. Just saying, just saying, folks. You know, just in case you get power outages.

Mikah Sargent [00:54:40]:
All right. With that, we have reached the end of this episode of iOS Today. Again, you can email us. iosday@twit.tv is how you get in touch. We'd love to hear from you. Rosemary Orchard, if people would like to follow you online, where are the places they should go to do that?

Rosemary Orchard [00:54:57]:
Uh, the best place to go is rosemaryosha.com, which has got links to apps, books, podcasts that I am or have been involved in. And of course, there's also links to all of my social media, including most places but not including the Club Toe Discord, where, you know, we like to hang out during the show. And also, sometimes people give us really useful feedback as we go on, like giving me a link to which Apple TVs actually support the new Siri remote, which I hadn't had time to research. So thank you very much. Thank you. much again, ScooterX, for that. That was very helpful. Micah, where can folks find you?

Mikah Sargent [00:55:27]:
If you're looking to find me online, I'm @micahsargent on many social media networks, or you can head to the newly redesigned chihuahua.coffee. Um, I love the way that e-ink looks, and so I redesigned my links page as if it were an e-ink display. It even has little, uh, refreshes that are reminiscent of E Ink, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the new design. I had someone reach out and say, oh, this looks great. I said, thanks. So check that out, chihuahua.coffee. Folks, thank you for being here for this week's episode of iOS Today. Rosemary and I will catch you again next week for another episode.

Mikah Sargent [00:56:10]:
Bye-bye.