This is Technology Bytes, episode 38 for November 26, 2023.

Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.

My name is Joel.

Enjoy, and here we go.

Today I want to talk about HomeKit, and I know I’ve talked about it before and maybe too much, I’m not sure, but it is something I’ve been using a little bit more this week and have some struggles with and some questions and just some general thoughts, so I thought I would share them with you, my audience.

First, let me share with you a big struggle story.

My daughter has a smart lock on her front door and we have enjoyed its use.

I think we’ve actually talked about smart locks and their use in the past, but this week it was jamming and she says, I’m going to have to have you over to look at my door, and so I said, of course, and then one night we stopped by and the door will not unlock.

No fault of smart home technology, but when you start leaning on it, you forget about what happens when it breaks and we could not get that door to open.

It ends up being that the battery was dead, and I’ll talk about that in a minute.

Just to finish the story, we ended up having to break in through a downstairs window that unfortunately she left unlocked because that could have been anyone coming into her house, but fortunately for us, we got there first, and anyway, we got in, changed the battery, everything’s good, but the problem is nothing told her that the battery was problematic.

The jamming that was happening was because the battery was going low and there was not enough torque for the lock to set itself properly, and HomeKit does not show you the battery of that device.

It doesn’t give you any indication.

Now, is that an Apple HomeKit problem or is that a manufacturer problem?

If you open the Schlage app, which is the kind of lock she has, it says right there that the battery is low, but we don’t use that app.

We use HomeKit and it doesn’t send us a notice.

It doesn’t do anything.

Again, I’m not sure if that’s a HomeKit problem or if that’s a manufacturer problem, not giving that information to HomeKit.

Either way, it’s got to be fixed.

The other thing I struggle with on a fairly regular basis is automations.

There are some that just work all the time.

Lights come on, different things that happen in that arena, motion sensors, those kind of things, but there are times when things just don’t work, and so I come home from a walk in the morning and I have an automation that says, hey, when I end a walking workout, unlock my front door.

I want to go inside, and it just doesn’t work.

It doesn’t ask.

It doesn’t do anything, and I don’t know why, and I don’t know how to fix it.

When I was living with my daughter and the lock that she had, every once in a while it would work, but most of the time it didn’t.

Again, is that a manufacturer problem, not giving information to HomeKit that it needs?

Is that a HomeKit problem?

I don’t know, but again, that has to be fixed.

One other issue I have with HomeKit this week is just availability of items.

We were at Home Depot, and it’s like, hey, we have some smart lights here, and it says that they can be used with Alexa, they can be used with Google Home, but nothing there about Apple.

I’m not sure why that is.

I used to hear that Apple had stricter requirements, and so things aren’t made for Apple.

Maybe that’s it.

Maybe there’s an expense that’s associated with that, but now we have this matter, what do you call it?

Nah, the word is escaping me.

Basically, it’s a way for smart home stuff to talk regardless of who it’s from, whether it’s Google, whether it’s Amazon, whether it’s Apple.

Then Apple can still maintain the security on their end if you use it with Apple stuff, but it makes more products available to smart home functions that you might want to use, and yet that doesn’t seem to be taking place very rapidly.

At the stores, I see a lot of smart TVs that say they have matter support.

I don’t even care about that because what’s it going to do?

Turn the TV on, turn the TV off.

I’m not sure I understand that fully.

Again, maybe it’s a matter of time.

Maybe it’s early adoption.

Occasionally, it becomes a struggle.

Now that you’ve heard me complain, and this seems weird to you because I don’t generally complain about Apple stuff.

One of the microcasts I did said, rather than complain about things that don’t work, realize that it’s amazing that anything does work.

I still have that because I’m still super satisfied with my smart home setup and how it works most of the time.

Obviously, there’s a few struggles, as you’ve heard in the last few minutes, but the fact is that even with the struggles, I wouldn’t change.

I wouldn’t think about going to Alexa.

I wouldn’t think about going to anything Google.

I like the Apple ecosystem.

All my hardware is in the Apple ecosystem from the control standpoint, iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch.

I just like the security and privacy and those kinds of things that Apple provides.

Like I said, for the most part, my smart home stuff does its job and works fairly well.

Although, the frustration does come out on occasion as it has here in the last minutes, but I’m not changing.

I’m hoping that over time, things get better.

With matter, things get even better.

We’ll see how that goes, but for today, work with the struggles, work through the struggles, figure out how to use your products the best that you can in the environment that you have, and enjoy smart home technology that makes your life easier.

So I apologize for being a little bit of a downer today.

Maybe it’s just been a tough weekend of smart home stuff.

I’m not sure, but I still like it.

It still does the things we want it to do.

On a side note, I bought some more Moross items over the weekend, and they are flawless.

They work exactly as they’re supposed to work.

You don’t need another app to set them up.

They work with HomeKit.

They do everything they’re supposed to do.

I love them, and I look at that company every time I need something to try to buy it.

But for now, that is all I have for today.

If you have comments or suggestions how to fix some of my smart home problems, that would be great.

You can send them to technologybytes at merrickfamily.com, and I will respond or enjoy the comments and maybe implement suggestions that you might have.

Thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast.

I look forward to the next time we are together taking another bite of technology.