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Backstory. Over time I have slowly been incorporating smart products into my home. Thermostats, lights, garage doors opener, etc. I had two major frustrations; #1 it seemed like every device had its own app. It was annoying, I wanted everything in one location. #2 everything was WiFi when it didn’t need to be. I decided to merge everything on HomeKit. Like it or hate it, it would require the least investment. I decided to use home bridge. I had installed it on a dedicated pc. Everything show up on all my devices through HomeKit no apps required. Fast-forward. Me and my wife purchased our first house. We got very fortunate, this will be +20 year home. It has everything we wanted. I decided to do more home automation. Mainly lighting, and lighting controls. As well as backup generator, propane level, and well water monitoring. Decided to use a Zigbee network because I didn’t want hundreds of devices on my WiFi. Homebridge requires a Zigbee USB dongle. In my research I found HOOBS was pre-ordering their Pro Box. This seemed like a much easier turn key solution, it claimed to have a Zigbee/thread network natively. So I ordered one. After months and months it finally arrived, then the problems began… Device would be unresponsive and drop off the Zigbee network. So I began troubleshooting and trying to optimize my setup. At this point I emailed HOOBS asking for help. I spent weeks moving WiFi channels to ensure no interference. Moving routers and nodes to physically separate my WiFi and Zigbee routers. We live out in the country with the least amount of 2.5ghz noise I have ever seen. Other than my WiFi no other WiFi networks are even detectable on my property. It did not help at all. In fact the HOOBS PRO BOX started to crash and go offline. At this point I had sent probably close to 15 emails asking for help. Finally hoobs responded and set up a remote access session. The technician did not know what was wrong. At the time of the remote session the Zigbee network was unstable and kept crashing. At the end of the call he said the “case would be sent to the pro team” after that, they went radio silent. I would email them every 2-3 days asking for updates. Still more radio silence… After almost 3 weeks I had gotten frustrated. I began emailing daily asking for updates. I got nothing other than automated responses. Finally after almost a week of frustrated emails asking repeatedly for someone to call me or anything other than automated emailed responses. I just wanted any communication. I got a email asking for my address so they could send me a replacement… a replacement that has not yet been produced. They could or would not give me a timeline or where in the queue my replacement is. They also do not know what is wrong with my device. No attempt to make a proper diagnosis. I think they offered me a replacement to shut me up. It was clear I expected ether a working product or competent technical support. Apparently there has been a change in the design from my version. They claim it’s due to a “chip shortage” however the visual changes to the board are the Zigbee/ Thread antennas… if my replacement is produced in the “March” batch I would have gone without a working product for over a year from original preorder. After months I moved all my Zigbee devices over to a Philips Hue Bridge. No issue other than I now have to have another app on my phone. I also had to install apps for other devices that don’t natively work on HomeKit. This also confirms it’s not a compatibility issue. If you are looking for home automation solution I would strongly avoid HOOBS terrible customer support. You are much better building your own home bridge on a raspberry pi. Or use another solution like home assistant yellow. In my opinion HOOBS currently doesn’t have a useable product, at least not as advertised. Giving them money is the equivalent of crowd funding without any of the updates or protection from any major platforms. if anyone wants more specific information of copies of the “communication” from Hoobs please let me know.

Hello! I've been having issues with my Philips Hue bridge. I recently moved houses. I just unplugged the bridge and took it with me. To connect it in my new house I reset the bridge, removed it from my account, and did a factory wipe. However, now when I plug it into the router (Huawei EchoLife EG8245Q), only 2 out of the 3 indicators turn on, when all three should be on: 1. Power 2. Home Network, meaning the bridge is connected to the router. The one that is OFF completely: 3. The "Hue Portal" indicator, aka internet connectivity. The bridge isn't connected to the internet. I noticed uPnP was off when snooping around in my router so I turned that on, but that didn't solve anything. I think there's a setting somewhere blocking the bridge from connecting to the internet. The router and internet access are provided with my new flat as a package deal so I'm suspecting they're babying us and "just turned everything off for safety." I'm not a networking genius so I've no idea how to fix this, but I just want my bridge to work I have one forwarded some ports to get my PS4 to work, do I do that as well now? tl;dr: Bridge doesn't have internet access and I think it's because of my router. What do I do? The router I have is Huawei EchoLife EG8245Q. Thank you for the help! If more info needs to be provided, I'm happy to share.

Hi everyone Here's my problem: I've got a Mac hooked up inside a cabinet, connected to external monitor and stuff. To prevent overheating, i fitted the cabinet with a couple of Noctua fans. Right now i turn them on by flicking a switch, but it would be real nice to automate the entire thing. Since I've got them hooked up to an external power brick, a smart plug seemed to me as the cleanest and easiest option. Those are plentiful and cheap on the market, my problem comes with the "software piece" that should trigger the plug whenever the Mac is awake basically (the goal is to stop the fans by cutting the power when the Mac goes to sleep or is turned off) I thought of two options: - Homekit, although i have no idea if there's a trigger "mac is awake" available in it and i have no spare device to set as an hub (i had heard you could do away with the hub under some circumstances) - IFTTT, although again, i couldn't figure out a way to have an app/script running on the Mac to act as a trigger. I'm open to any other automation software that could detect the Mac's awake status and trigger the plug...I haven't mentioned Alexa/Google cause voice control is out of the question for me, i might as well tap the switch manually at that point. If anybody could help me, it would be much appreciated! Thanks everybody

Hi everybody I'm looking to automate a smart home action on my mac, using an homekit compatible power plug + the shortcuts app in Monterey (or Automator if it's better, idk). The idea would be that whenever the Macbook is awake, the trigger activates the smart plug. When the Mac goes to sleep or is turned off, the smart plug shuts off, cutting power. [The smart plug is used with a universal 12V power adapter to power a fan inside the cabinet that ensures that part of the computer setup is cooled). I've looked left right and center into the new Shortcuts app and I honestly couldn't find any way to use the Mac's "awake status" as a trigger for a shortcut. It's simply not possible to do this or I missed something? Is it something that can be done with Automator perhaps? Note: the trigger should be automatic. Right now i simply flick a physical switch near the monitor to start the fan, so having a software button on the mac, use siri or something not automatic would be pointless...if i've got to turn it on myself, i might as well stick with the current setup. Thanks everybody for the help!

Hey guys, wanted some help from people that may be more experienced in HomeKit. I'm moving into my new place some time in the future and currently trying to plan out the smart home accessories. One of the main issues is the lighting situation, I plan to run 2x lines of LED Strips across my living room ceilings along the sides as the main source of illumination (so no direct lights e.g hanging or recessed lights from the ceiling) I've attached a couple of photos that I found to illustrate. The setup is currently planned as: (Named A and B for easier reference) Eve LED Strip (A) wired to the Wemo Dimmer Switch (B) Some has shared that this setup wont make sense as when B is off, A will not be controllable to turn off/on But since we will primarily only be using B to control the light switch off/on there should not be any issues? (and I could just group the accessories together so it toggles off/on together) And in the event we do want to change the lights colours on A, we could have scene presets which would be able to take effect if B is on. There'll be a couple of IFTTT's to make the above feasible. If A = ON, and if B if OFF, turn B ON If B = OFF, and if A is ON, change A to OFF (not likely frequently happen) If A = OFF, and if B is ON, turn B OFF (but shouldn't need to since turning A off cuts power to B) This way we only need to interact with A, and B is simply there for its fancy features of RGB and adaptive lighting. I also assume the dimmer will communicate with the LED accordingly without any other further setup? We do not want to have smart LED strips with dumb switches since the switches would then passively need to be in a "on" state. And to have smart switches with static colour LEDs is not something we want as well since we are rather keen on the adaptive lighting feature. What do you think guys?

For all you apple fans out there, I have a question, Say I have a set of track lights plugged into a Homekit enabled wall-socket which is then plugged into the wall, and I want to have this plug turn on when I ask Siri for example "turn on water". Is it possible to name the Homekit enabled plug "water" so when I ask Siri to turn it on, she will. I know it's possible with the Amazon Echo, but I'm not sure about Siri any Homekit. Edit: Water is just an example, I mean like can I name the plug anything I want to.

Right now i'm trying to build a Raspberry Pi project that will allow my family to turn the lights of their Christmas tree on and off using Apple's Homekit and Siri. However, at the moment I can't get the software side of the project working. Does anyone have a tutorial that I can follow that will allow me to turn the GPIO of a Pi on and off using Homekit? I've seen Make Use Of's tutorial, but that requires the use of another Arduino board that I just cannot justify the purchase of.

Can someone please help me fix this: This is the code: https://pastebin.com/Da6maaKq

Hey, I have an extraordinary idea, imagine if you have your smart bulbs in your house, and you have your smart security system, and when the alarm gets triggered all the lights of the house turns red and at a 100 percent like a submarine and the alarms sounds. well, I tried to do it with shortcuts but when I was done I activated the shortcut and everything was working well, then I exited the app and locked my iPad and it stops. any suggestions? I am using Philips hue and HomeKit with a HomePod and an Aqara security system.