The easiest way to control HomeKit devices is via Apple’s own Home app. It is even more convenient to divide your house into rooms for this. For example, you can add rooms in the Home app.
Adding rooms for a smarter home
With multiple smart HomeKit devices, such as lamps, curtains or HomePods in the house, you quickly lose the overview. To control your home as smartly as possible, let the Home app add your rooms. For example, you can separately operate the lamps in your kitchen, bedroom and garden.
Making rooms also makes it easier for you to build scenes for certain situations and spaces. This allows you to perform different actions with one command. For example, a ‘Good night’ scene will stop the music, turn off all the lights downstairs and turn down the heating.
Also read: How to create scenes in the Home app (and how to automate them)
Add rooms in the Home app
You can set as many rooms as needed in the app. Here you group devices, so that you can operate them per room. If you want to have certain devices work separately in one physical room, it is useful to set two rooms for this in the app. This is how you add a room.
- Open the Home app and go to ‘Rooms’;
- Tap the list icon at the top left;
- Select ‘Room settings’ and then ‘Add room…’;
- Give the new room a name, such as bedroom;
- Choose a background and press ‘Save’;
In this way you can add all the rooms you want in quick succession. It is also possible to subsequently adjust the list order of rooms. To do this, press ‘Edit’ in the Room settings and drag the rooms into the desired order.
Monthly Theme HomeKit
Throughout November, we will focus on the HomeKit theme. In the coming weeks, we’ll be taking a deeper look at Apple’s smart device ecosystem for you. Based on tips and background, we investigate how safe HomeKit is, what you can do with it and we look at the future of HomeKit.
Read more about HomeKit
- HomeKit: 5 tips for smarter operation of your smart home (18-11-2020)
- HomeKit vs Google Home: the best option for your smart home (17-11-2020)
- Tip: This is how you create scenes in the Home app (and this is how you automate them) (11/5/2020)
- Using the intercom: This is how you talk to roommates via Apple devices (4-11-2020)
- Apple Pay, HomeKit and more: you can do all this with the nfc chip in your iPhone (7/21/2020)