This is Technology Bytes, episode 10 for May 14th, 2023.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share my brief insights on an interesting technology.
My name is Joel.
Enjoy.
And here we go.
I’m going to spend this one more week in talking about HomeKit, Apple’s smart home control system.
There’s going to be things that I am not going to cover.
I may need to come back later and cover it again.
But I don’t want to stretch this topic too thin or too far.
So if I have to come back to it again, I will.
But we’re going to have this kind of be the wrap up for the moment.
So the first week I talked about just the basics, how you set it up, some ways that it is used, and those kind of things.
An overview of sorts.
Last week I talked about some of the easiest things to put together, which is lights and how that works, and how I use them, and some automation.
Today I want to talk about door locks and sensors.
I’m going to start talking about door locks.
There are lots of different manufacturers who make door locks that work with HomeKit.
I am most familiar with Slage, if that’s how you say that word, because I’ve used that a couple of different times in the homes that I’ve been in.
And I really like the way it works.
It has external number pads so you can get in if something goes haywire, say your internet is down or something like that.
You still don’t have to carry a key.
But there are lots of options when it comes to locks.
Level lock is something that’s sold at the Apple store, and that’s a pretty nice setup and has a tie in to Apple’s keys.
So you can actually just have a key for that lock on someone’s phone.
You can send a temporary key to someone who needs to get into your house.
But on the level lock there is no entry from a keypad.
If something goes haywire you have to have the original key.
And because it’s an outdoor door you have to have it with you.
The thing I like about the locks that have keypads is you don’t have to carry the key.
The original key will work if things go really sour, but if you don’t have the key with you, you still have a combination that would let you get in the door.
And then there are other locks like the August smart lock that really just replaces the internal part of your throw for locking the deadbolt.
All of these are deadbolt locks that I’m talking about.
And it just throws that switch for you to deadbolt your door or undeadbolt your door.
Your original key continues to work.
In the instance of the level lock it’s very similar.
You can get something that replaces the entire deadlock mechanism in your door so then that key works.
Or level lock also has an internal automated lock that just turns the deadbolt for you and your hardware on the outside remains the same.
That way you’ve got matching colors, it doesn’t change how your door looks.
Lots of positives that go with that.
Some negatives because you do have to have that key as a backup.
But every one of the locks that ties to HomeKit will allow you to lock and unlock your door from basically anywhere in the world.
I’m not sure if I talked about that last week, but if you have an Apple TV or a HomePod in your home, those can work as what they call HomeKit hubs.
Because those devices have access to the internet, you can talk to them through HomeKit no matter where you are.
And that can come in handy as well.
On the sensor front, there’s lots of different sensors that can be used with HomeKit.
Probably more common ones might be ones that are on doorways or windows so that you know if a door is open or shut.
Or you know if a window is open or shut.
Other sensors that work could be temperature sensors with maybe a smart thermostat, which I haven’t really gotten into, but I really love the one I’ve installed from Echobee.
You can also have flood sensors where you have running water like in bathrooms and those types of things in case something breaks or someone leaves a faucet on.
Those sensors can come in handy.
So lots of ways that sensors can be used.
So let me go back a little bit and talk about locks one more time.
And let’s talk about both locks and sensors and talk about installation processes.
So on smart locks, you are messing with the guts of your deadbolt because that is where they live in the deadbolt world.
So basically what I do and how I’ve used it is I don’t pay any attention to the knob.
That remains unlocked all the time and I use the deadbolt for security.
And then what I’ve done in the times that I’ve done installation is just replaced in the instance of Slage the entire assembly of the deadbolt section of your door lock with a new Slage smart lock.
And so you have to make sure your throw is correct, that everything is lined up properly, that there’s no jamming, that it moves smoothly.
But the deadbolt locks in our doors these days are not all that complicated.
It’s really just a lever that rotates left and right that throws a big bolt into the door frame from the door and that’s pretty much all it is.
So changing that out is not very complicated at all.
The locks that I’ve used send you templates to make sure you know how to set it because there are different settings and how much that throw needs to happen, where it starts, based on the distance from the center of your lock to the outside edge of your door.
But those are standards.
They are either set at maybe a 2 inch or 1.5 inch and the lock comes for you to set for that throw, whatever that needs to be.
So installation of door locks, while a little bit more involved, is still not very complicated and even me, as not so much of a handyman, have done it a number of times with no issues whatsoever.
As far as sensors go, for door sensors, window sensors, those kind of things, I haven’t used those but I’ve seen them in place.
For the most part, they are a fairly simple installation on your door frame and then on your door, just making sure they are lined up.
I believe they are magnets so that those are close enough so when the door is shut, they actually react to each other and the system knows that the door is shut.
Same with the windows, finding the appropriate place to put them so that it matches when the door is closed or when the window is closed and then it breaks that connection in a sense.
When the door or window is open, those sensors then work with HomeKit to let you know the state of doors and windows.
In the same idea there, sensors for the water leaks, we’ve talked about that.
That’s pretty much just a setup of throw a sensor on the floor.
There are batteries in these things so there may be some battery change over the years but sensors usually run quite a long time on the batteries that come with them and are fairly simple to change when that’s necessary.
One of the cool things that Apple has done in the area of sensors is they’ve turned on a temperature and humidity sensor in the HomePod Minis and they also have them now in the new larger original HomePod.
Not the original because the original doesn’t have it but in the larger full-size HomePod that they’ve reintroduced I guess you might say.
That’s pretty cool because those are built in, those are always powered, you don’t have to worry about batteries and they can tell you things that are happening in your home and help with automation which I will cover next.
I want to talk briefly about automation.
Let’s start with door locks.
Those are in your HomeKit app now.
At the bottom of your HomeKit app there’s a section there you can tap on at the bottom that says automation and they have some ideas there for you.
I’ll just share with you some of the ways that I’ve used the door lock in my environment.
One thing I do is the first person or any time a person actually gets home then you are prompted to unlock the door.
That means if you’re carrying groceries or your hands are full you don’t have to worry about the door being locked, it’s available when you get there.
You can always say no if that makes you feel more secure but it helps in the sense that you don’t have to remember to unlock the door, if your hands are full you don’t have to try to get to your phone or talk to your watch or anything like that.
That’s a pretty neat automation.
The other thing that I did, well still do, is to have the door lock just before sunset.
That is just a security thing so I don’t forget when I go to bed.
Those kind of things.
Really two basic automations that I’ve used.
There’s lots of other ones that can be implemented but those two seem to work well for door locks.
Sensors on the other hand have a number of different automations that can really help you.
Not so much that they physically do anything but they can help other things in your house do things.
So for instance, if you have a door sensor or a window sensor and you can then set up an automation that says if I’m leaving home and any of my sensors show an access point is open, notifies me on my phone so that I can remember to go back and shut those things.
Or potentially in the age of working from home like my son does, is you can have it set an automation where when the outside temperature reaches a certain level it will remind you to shut the doors and windows in your house and then maybe turn on the air conditioning.
If you have a smart thermostat then you can have the temperature sensors in your HomePod mini or your HomePod or maybe one that came with the smart thermostat control your thermostat.
So when I get to this temperature I want the cooling to turn on.
When it gets to this temperature I want the heat to turn on.
And the other thing you can do if you don’t have a smart thermostat is have those sensors tell you what the internal temperature is in your house so that you can then go and either close doors, close windows, turn on the AC so that you have a more comfortable environment or turn on the heat or whatever the case may be.
So lots of automations for notifications from sensors unlike door locks and lights they don’t physically do anything but they can be used to notify you of things.
So for instance if you don’t always have your phone with you, you’re not always wearing an Apple watch you could have a HomePod mini turn a light a certain color in your smart lights that we talked about last week.
So let’s say it’s summer time you might have the light turn red indicating your room is kind of hot you may want to turn on the AC and close up the house a little bit.
In the winter time you might have the light turn blue letting you know that it’s a little bit cold in here you might want to turn on the heater maybe open some doors and windows to let a little bit of outside heat in.
Something like that.
So there are lots of ways to use sensors to help you control your home and know when certain things are happening.
The thing I like about sensors is just status it gives me status reports and I can ask for those at any time I could actually set up shortcuts that say hey at 9 o’clock in the morning at noon at 2 at 5 just give me a report of what all the sensors are in the house.
And what the temperature is what the humidity is so that then I can in a manual sense if I haven’t set up automations and smart things to control my home and be more efficient in that arena as well.
I know that’s a lot of information to listen to and to try to have in your head and at some point I need to start doing show notes for these shows.
But I appreciate you listening and I appreciate your time I hope you’ve had maybe an opportunity to install some smart things in your home or maybe this challenges you to want to take a look at that and you then make your home do and act as you would have it do.
You have been listening to the TechnologyBytes microcast until next time continue enjoying your technology.
