When you wake up in the morning, the lights turn on automatically and the thermostat is turned up a few degrees: HomeKit scenes can do it. In this tip, we’ll show you how it works.
This is how you use scenes in the Home app
If you want to customize all of your HomeKit devices at once, you can group them into preset scenes. Setting up scenes can be quite useful. For example, with the ‘Good night’ scene you can switch off all your lights and turn down the heating with one command. It can also be useful to set a scene for when you want to study or work, where your lamps go to full brightness.
You can use Apple’s suggested scenes, but they are also customizable. First of all, make sure you have connected your smart devices to HomeKit. You can easily set them up using the step-by-step plan below.
- Open the Home app and go to the ‘Home’ tab;
- Tap the plus sign and ‘New scene’;
- Choose one of the suggested scenes or tap ‘Custom’ to create your own;
- Enter a name for the scene and choose which devices to turn on by tapping ‘Add or remove accessories’;
- Press and hold one of the devices to determine, for example, the brightness and color of lamps;
- Tap on ‘Test this scene’ to see exactly what he does;
- Check ‘Show in favorites’ if you want to see the scene in the Home tab of the app;
- Tap Done.
Now that you’ve created your scene, you can activate it via the Home app when needed. Siri can also activate scenes for you. For example, by wishing your iPhone ‘good night’, that eponymous scene is activated.
This way you can automate scenes
Do you want certain scenes to be automatically activated? Then you can automate it. For this it is important that you have, for example, an iPad or Apple TV set up a HomeKit hub. Follow the steps below to set up automations.
- In the Home app, go to the ‘Automation’ tab and tap the plus sign;
- Choose when the automation should take place. You can choose from a location, a time or a HomeKit device that turns on or off;
- Then choose which scenes or individual devices should turn on. Here you can also adjust things like brightness;
- Confirm the automation by tapping ‘Done’.
It is also possible to add different people to the automation. To do this, tap the plus sign to add an automation and choose ‘People arriving’ or ‘People leaving’. You can then set the lights to switch on as soon as you or a roommate comes home, so that you never come home in the dark again.
Do you want to delete an existing automation? You do this by swiping left on the option you want to remove. It’s good to remember that anyone you’ve given access through the Home app can access your scenes and automations. These can also be set per person.
More about HomeKit
Want to know more about HomeKit devices? On iPhone you can read all about (smart) living. For example, we tested what the best HomeKit speaker is and we listed the differences between the HomePod and the new cheaper HomePod mini. We also provide tips on how to use HomeKit on your Apple Watch.