Christian SeligDiscovery: If you have Hue lights and want a single Hue dimmer switch button to *toggle* lights on/off, this is really slow in Apple Home (you need to run an actual Shortcut). In Home Assistant there's just a toggle command that is literally 10x faster. 2.5 seconds -> ~200ms 🥳
(Maybe I'm weird, but having a separate button for "on" and "off" seems like the opposite of smart versus having a single button just be a toggle)
Andrew Faden@christianselig
Another approach is to set up 2 Home Automations to conditionally turn on/off the device on button presses. Here's how it looks in the Eve app (which is just acting as a more advanced interface for HomeKit). It's even uglier than having a single shortcut, but button presses almost instantly toggle my light.
Another approach is to set up 2 Home Automations to conditionally turn on/off the device on button presses. Here's how it looks in the Eve app (which is just acting as a more advanced interface for HomeKit). It's even uglier than having a single shortcut, but button presses almost instantly toggle my light.
@christianselig HomeKit is janky in so many ways:
- There's a subtle difference between personal shortcuts (which run on your phone, and can't be triggered by home device state changes and won't work when it's offline) vs shortcuts that run on your home hub (but which have very limited library of actions) vs home automations (fast and simple "when x, if y, then z" logic that runs on your home hub).
- There's a subtle difference between personal shortcuts (which run on your phone, and can't be triggered by home device state changes and won't work when it's offline) vs shortcuts that run on your home hub (but which have very limited library of actions) vs home automations (fast and simple "when x, if y, then z" logic that runs on your home hub).
@christianselig - Can't edit the condition (y) of a home automation in the Home app, you need to use a 3rd party app like Eve, even though it's actually part of HomeKit backend system. You can actually do all sorts of complex conditions, like "if temp is <70" or "if battery level <30" or "if smart outlet is currently in use"
@christianselig - Can't apply the "toggle" action from within a home automation or a shortcut that runs on your home hub, only on personal shortcuts. So you need to create two separate automations to turn on and off.
@faden yeah my main thing though is I don’t want to install a bunch of vendor specific apps for every accessory I just want to do everything through one app (Apple Home)
@christianselig I don’t even have any Eve accessories, I’m just using it as an advanced HomeKit app. That rule is using an Aqara button to toggle a Nanoleaf bulb, and runs on my HomeKit hub. It even shows up in Home, you just can’t edit the condition there. https://youtu.be/Ft07PRk6jtk?t=138
@christianselig I think the Eve app is using the Homekit API to set up an HMEventTrigger (aka Automation) with a “predicate”. It's all possible in HomeKit, Apple has just dumbed down the Home app too much. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/homekit/hmeventtrigger
There are other HomeKit 3rd party apps that can edit conditions too, like Controller for HomeKit https://homedevices.app/creating-complex-homekit-automations-step-by-step/#Conditions . But the Eve app is free and works well for me.
@faden That's pretty clever but makes me scratch my head about Apple Home even more then. I think I'll just stick to Home Assistant where everything is at least in one app