You’ll soon control home appliances with iDevices

Nov 4, 2014 14:31 GMT  ·  By

Apple’s HomeKit promises to change the way we interact with home appliances forever. Manufacturers will simply need to slide in a certified chip and you’ll be able to control that garage door or thermostat from any iDevice, perhaps even the one on your wrist.

Forbes has it on file from Broadcom and Texas Instruments that “chipmakers have begun shipping their chips loaded with HomeKit firmware to device manufacturers,” which should signal the emergence of HomeKit-certified devices any time now.

HomeKit to literally open the door to your house

Announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference this summer, HomeKit is a framework in iOS 8 that allows the iDevice to communicate with and control connected accessories within a user’s home. For example, you could open the garage door with a tap on your iDevice, turn on the heat, run a bath, or control the lighting, all with a few taps on the iPhone.

To get Apple’s certification, appliance manufacturers will need to embed these HomeKit-enabled chips in their devices to ensure smooth operability. Certification is obtained using the traditional MFi (Made for iPhone) program.

Apple says that anyone who is interested in creating HomeKit-enabled hardware needs to be an MFi licensee. This also grants access to manufacturing resources, including technical specifications, MFi logos and identity guidelines, and hardware technical support.

Despite not being launched yet, HomeKit can already be used in third-party accessories. When the firmware is finalized, vendors will be able to update their chips remotely, ensuring that their accessories are on par with the latest specifications.

Only the beginning

Brian Bedrosian, senior director of embedded wireless in the mobile and wireless group at Broadcom, notes, “Everyone’s getting ready. Expect to see new product launches in the next cycle of product releases.”

Bedrosian adds that the smart-home industry has been a fragmented one and that Apple is doing the right thing to bring certification to this crippled market, explaining that “One thing HomeKit provides is the bridging protocols for various devices to connect simply by Wifi to the cloud.”

He also believes that if Apple is delving into this market, people will have confidence that things will work as advertised, and will therefore grow the market with their purchases: “The goal is to create a better consumer experience for the iOS ecosystem and provide a simplified and unified approach to control home devices.” He also thinks this is just the first wave of many such products to come.