“Dude, Where my Accessories at?”
I can’t help but notice the masses of concerned users over where their “Favorites Accessories” Tab is going to be in the upcoming iOS 11. For those of you who don’t know what his is, it is a quick access page that you can access by swiping over from the control center on your iOS device. It gives you access to your top nine smart devices that you set in your “Home” app. If this is you let me help you out. Quick access to control your top HomeKit accessories is not really “Home Automation”. It is simply a glorified remote control for certain devices in your home. If this concerns you drastically, you are missing the entire point.
Take Off the Blindfold
HomeKit is just in its infancy, and for many the “Home” application makes you feel in control. However, the future of HomeKit is not controlling everything via an application on your mobile device. You might be saying to your self “well duh, it’s going to be the use of Siri or any other voice controlled platform.” You will however still be wrong. What makes Home Automation is not the first word in the sequence but the second, “Automation.” See what really gets me exited is not using Siri to turn on my lights, or open an application and set the lights as desired. I get excited by the prospect of not having to do anything. As information trickles out regarding HomeKit improvements soon to hit, it becomes evident that the direction Apple is taking is as such.
So what does this look like?
- You wake up in the morning to beautiful sunlight because your smart blinds have already opened up the let the sun in.
- The Thermostat has started to warm up the house to give you an extra nudge out of the bed and to make it not so cold when you get out of the shower.
- You head into the kitchen where your coffee (or tea) has already brewed.
- You start listening to your morning news, traffic reports, weather, and/or music etc.
- You grab your work materials and head to the front door open it and before you know it your own your way to work.
Notice how I didn’t mention anything about lights? Thats because while your were flowing around your home lights were coming on and going off for you based on your routines or sensors that have been strategically placed. You didn’t pick up your phone to do any of it and you didn’t shout to any device to get it done either. You didn’t flip a switch or tap a button. You didn’t unlock or lock your front door. All of this will be taken care of for you as the smart home technologies advance.
Don’t get me wrong I also use the “Favorite Accessories” tab along with Siri quite often to control my smart devices. I see what is approaching with these technological advances and I have to say I am very intrigued. Rest assured Apple and those reinventing the Home Automation systems that we are adopting are very smart. They will not leave you hanging on access to your favorite devices.
You’ve probably learned this by now, but Home isn’t going away from Control Center—it just wasn’t in the keynote demonstration. Home is now one of the many configurable options that you can include in Control Center now, and it’s accessed with a hard press on a Home button instead of by swiping to it.
Yes just unsure what can be talked about or not. However the point of the write up was that controlling in the future will be less important. Thanks for the comment and keep them coming. I love open discussion. 😀
Cool. And thanks for all you put into this blog! You’re one of the sources I check when i put together the news lineup for my podcast.
Thank you very much for the kind words Richard. Hopefully together we can all make Smart-Home tech more understood and more prepared for the everyday users.