A smart home can make your life easier, more fun and above all, smarter. iPhoned lists five HomeKit setups for different moments and homes.
With a smart lamp or plug here and there, your ‘home control’ is useful, but there is always room for improvement. With these five HomeKit setups, you will find a way to make your home as smart as possible for every moment and every living situation.
1. The home cinema setup (budget of approximately € 350)
Action hits, bad comedies, nasty horror or Oscar winners: If you love nothing more than devouring movies, you can make your life a lot easier with a number of HomeKit devices around the house. During an ideal movie night, you want to be able to easily stream movies and series, tune the lights and of course have good sound. You need this.
- Apple TV 4- 159 euros
- Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance Starter kit – 159 euros
- Eve Energy smart plug – 39.95 euros
With the Apple TV, you can easily stream movies and series with the remote control or via Siri. Moreover, you do not need special speakers with AirPlay 2, because you simply connect it to the Apple TV. That way you don’t have to invest in new speakers.
The Philips Hue lamps are ideal for building special scenes. For example, set special light scenes for thrillers or action films, so that you are always in a different setting.
You can complete the movie night with smart plugs. Connect your popcorn machine, microwave or other equipment here to avoid having to get up to arrange refreshments.
2. The security setup (budget of approximately € 580)
By securing your home with smart home products, you are in control more than ever and you always know what is going on in and around your house. There is already a wide range of security equipment that supports HomeKit and can therefore be operated via your Mac, iPhone or iPad.
- Danalock V3 HomeKit Smart Lock – € 196.89
- Elgato Eve Smoke smoke detector – 112.99 euros
- Logitech Circle 2 wireless security camera – 199 euros
- LIFX Mini Wi-Fi Bulb – EUR 24.99
- Eve Motion motion sensor – 49.95 euros
Lamps with a motion sensor are ideal for hanging outside, and thus deter unwanted visitors. In addition, you can hang the Logitech Circle 2 both indoors and outdoors, and watch what is happening everywhere.
The LIFX lamp can be installed without a bridge and is ideal for setting a timer. For example, it switches on as soon as it gets dark. Finally, you will never need a key again thanks to the safe and smart lock from Danalock.
3. The atmosphere setup (budget of approximately € 800)
A romantic or festive song, dimmed and cozy lights and a pleasant temperature. HomeKit is very suitable if you want to make your home more atmospheric, and with a setup full of colorful lamps you can do that in any situation.
- Logitech POP Wireless Smart Button – EUR 39.99
- Nanoleaf Light Panels Smarter Kit – Rhythm Edition – 199.95 euros
- Philips Hue Go portable lamp – 79.95 euros
- LIFX Multicolor Downlight – 79.95 euros
- Tado smart thermostat – 199 euros
- Sonos One – 204 euros
The Sonos One speaker itself is not compatible with HomeKit, but by connecting it to the Logitech POP button, you can still ensure that your music is as easy to control as your lights and thermostat.
4. The budget set (budget from approximately € 50)
In general, HomeKit devices are unfortunately fairly pricey, and therefore not equally suitable for every wallet. Fortunately, furniture giant IKEA has also set up its own smart home product line. This one TRADFRI collection is affordable.
With a number of smart solutions from IKEA you can make your entire lighting smart for a reasonable price. Unfortunately, only the lamps of the TRADFRI line are currently compatible with HomeKit. The smart plugs and motion sensors will probably receive an update for HomeKit in early 2019.
Until then, the smart plug (a € 39.95) and motion sensor (a € 49.95) from the Eve brand are also reasonably affordable. With the TRADFRI gateway (a € 32.95) you connect the various IKEA lamps to HomeKit. This way you can still experience the pleasure and convenience of a smart home that can be operated at the touch of a button.
5. The I-want-everything setup (budget from around € 750)
If you dream of automating your entire home, you can go a long way with HomeKit today. The above setups already provide the necessary inspiration for this, but there are plenty of other gadgets that put the finishing touches on your smart home.
- Nanoleaf remote control – 59.95 euros
- Netatmo Presence camera – 249 euros
- Netatmo Healthy Home Coach – 98.12 euros
- Fibaro flood sensor – 69.95 euros
- Eve Room indoor air quality sensor – 99.95 euros
- Eve Aqua water controller with smart functionality – 99.95 euros
- Elgato Eve weather station – 69.95 euros
If you really want everything, you can decide to also buy a HomePod. The HomePod is not yet officially available in the Netherlands, but has already been released in Germany and France.
Importing a HomePod is quite easy. Because the smart speaker has not yet been released here, Siri does not speak Dutch yet. For the time being, you will still have to communicate in English with the speaker.
Read more about HomeKit
- Use HomeKit on your Apple Watch: control your home from your wrist (30-11-2020)
- Apple Pay, HomeKit and more: you can do all this with the nfc chip in your iPhone (7/21/2020)
- Tested: The best HomeKit speaker and 4 alternatives (13-4-2020)
- In these 5 ways, iOS 13 makes HomeKit simpler and more secure (6/8/2019)
- This is how you create Zones in the Home app, and you can do this with it (3/31/2019)