Grade: D+ (average score: 2.7, median score 3, last year: 3.1)
Apple’s Home strategy—if it has one—backslid in the estimation of our panel this year. (And it’s never really gotten good grades.) Many panel members hold out hope that Apple is planning a grander strategy and that the launch of the new Matter smart-home specification in 2022 will help things coalesce. But the lack of action up to now sours most of their perspectives. This is a group that’s waiting for something to cheer for—and not finding it.
Brian Mattucci said, “I’m excited about Home Key and look forward to trying it at some point in the near future.”
Allison Sheridan said, “The Home app really and truly needs to be redesigned from the ground up. I’ve been using it for years and whenever it’s time to add a new device or mess with a scene or an automation, I find myself fumbling around trying to guess where an option is buried. It’s truly an awful piece of software.”
Charles Arthur said, “Still seems to be trailing. When something goes wrong, you don’t know who’s at fault—the product vendor or Apple. HomeKit’s automation programming needs to integrate with Shortcuts – I’d like to be able to chain commands together to adapt to different scenarios, rather than just having individual scenes to enable and disable.”
Guilherme Rambo said, “There’s no home strategy that we can see. The OG HomePod is dying a slow death without a decent replacement. And to top it all off, the iOS/tvOS 15.1 update completely broke my HomeKit setup, rendering most automations unreliable. They need to catch up on this, and do it quickly.”
Joe Macirowski said, “The app is still ugly and my new bedside mini pair starts playing music an entire minute after I’ve dismissed the phone’s wake up alarm on the watch.”
John Moltz said, “HomeKit works fairly well for me in my limited use and it works on more and more devices. I still maintain that Apple needs to make its own kit.”
Benjamin Mayo said, “Apple’s home strategy remains unclear. Although there may be a long-term vision in development, nothing materialized in 2021 to really back that up. HomePod mini got some new color options, but that was basically it. Apple has a lot of potential to make a contribution but they aren’t yet doing it. Even Facebook has a better offering right now with the Portal, enabling pretty seamless living room FaceTime calls with family — a feature that it feels like Apple could very easily provide.”
Rosemary Orchard said, “I’m really excited by the new Apple Home Key feature, and the Thread rollout appears to be going well.”
Federico Viticci said, “At the moment, Apple does not have a Home strategy. They have a Home app, and they have a HomePod mini, which is ‘mini’ in comparison to… nothing, since the original, regular-size HomePod was discontinued. At this point, it’s fair to say that Apple is merely the maker of a HomeKit API and aggregation dashboard (the Home app). If Apple wants to compete with Amazon and take back control of the home from the Echos of the world, they need to make more hardware, and they need to make it fast. And that’s not even to mention the clunky and outdated design of the Home app, the lack of interactive HomeKit widgets on iOS, or absence of Home complications on the Watch. I hope we see any kind of new story from Apple regarding the Home in 2022.”
Paul Kafasis said, “I’m hopeful for the Thread/Matter future, but HomeKit devices continue to be slow, Shortcuts are hit or miss – it all just does not work as quickly or reliably as it should. And yet, it works just well enough to keep me using it!”
Josh Centers said, “HomeKit seems to be languishing. Maybe that will change once the Matter standard drops. But I gave Apple high marks simply for how great the HomePod mini is.”
Shelly Brisbin said, “Apple continues to lag behind Amazon and Google in terms of sheer numbers of devices supported. But more importantly, configuring HomeKit-compatible devices is often not fully possible in the minimalist Home app, and what’s required get up and running (like using the device manufacturer’s app along with Home) is opaque to many.”
Lex Friedman said, “I still rely on hacks to make things work the way they should.”
Marco Arment said, “HomeKit works well for me, but the Home app is garbage on every platform. The HomePod Mini is a great little product, but the lineup could really use more options, such as a replacement for the large HomePod, a battery-powered portable HomePod, and a HomePod line-out box for larger integrations.”
Michael Tsai said, “The Mac Home app is an embarrassment.”
Marcus Mendes said, “If it wasn’t for the Matter thing, I’d be sure that Apple had given up on this market altogether. Kind of like Siri.”
Adam Engst said, “As with the Apple TV, it feels like Apple’s HomeKit team isn’t really doing very much, such that HomeKit continues to work but has little forward momentum.”
Gabe Weatherhead said, “I’ve seen zero innovation in either the Home app or HomeKit. The Home app remains one of the most obtuse and inconsistent UIs Apple provides, which is odd for something that should be targeting more average users.”
Steven Aquino said, “HomeKit is great in many respects, but I feel like Apple is missing the boat by not offering a smart display. The OG HomePod in my kitchen is great, but I’d much rather have a screen from which I could monitor the doorbell and driveway cams without having to reach for my phone every time the doorbell rings.”
Rich Mogull said, “Improvements have been incremental, but even trying a ton of other apps, I still end up using Home more than anything since the layout works well. We have also become really reliant on Siri for our home control. However, most of my automations run on a separate higher-end product (Indigo) that I trigger with Home.”
Dan Moren said, “I want to like HomeKit so much. I use it all the time, but it’s decidedly flaky. Devices are often listed as Not Responding. Siri on the HomePod sometimes just decides it doesn’t want to be able to control your accessories, and you still have to fall back to third-party solutions like Homebridge to get many devices to work. It’s promising, and I have high hopes for Matter, but the Home app is badly in need of an update, and would it kill Apple to produce some smart home tech to show other companies how it’s done?”
Zac Hall said, “Five stars for HomePod mini and new features added, but no stars for discontinuing the original HomePod with no replacement.”
Peter Cohen said, “I’m really hoping HomeKit is useable with more stuff this year once Matter starts to take hold.”
John Gruber said, “I think this whole endeavor needs a major kickstart. You want to go all-in on the Apple experience for your phone or computer or even TV, you know what to do. But if you want to go all-in on the Apple experience for home automation, it’s very muddled.”
John Siracusa said, “Too many third-party home devices that claim to have HomeKit support are actually constant headaches that ‘disappear’ from HomeKit on a regular basis. Is this Apple’s fault? I’m not sure, but there are so few good HomeKit devices that it certainly is Apple’s problem.”
Alex Cox said, “HomeKit can position itself as the homeOS for people who care about their privacy, but Apple needs a smart hub that’s more robust and reliable than the HomePod Mini.”
Tom Bridge said, “Apple needs a better story here, but the HomePod mini is a solid entrant in the home speaker line. The poor, neglected HomePod, though, is suffering service and experience degradation that needs to be addressed. I am hopeful for a new standard with new material to help uncloud the picture, but we’re still a long way from good.”
Casey Liss said, “I am a HomeKit user, but it’s still a buggy mess. I’ve come to loathe the word ‘Updating…’, as I see it all too often. There aren’t enough HomeKit devices on the market. HomeKit is too unreliable. Something that doesn’t work in the Home app will often work immediately in Siri, or vice/versa. It’s infuriating. I like the spirit of HomeKit. I like the implementation, when it works. But it is far too unreliable. I can’t recommend it for an average user.”
Myke Hurley said, “It feels like someone is truly asleep at the wheel in Apple’s Home team. Maybe they put all of their efforts in to building the home set they use for keynotes. There has just been nothing meaningful at all. I really hope they’ve been so quiet because they have something great coming. I will remain hopeful.”
Carolina Milanesi said, “I hope things will improve with Apple’s back up of Matter but progress here seems low for the average iPhone user. It seems that the return is really for those users who invest in shortcuts and routine which is not for everyone”
Jeff Carlson said, “Maybe it’s the fragmented nature of different home products and standards and implementations, but nothing about HomeKit ever seems like ‘it just works.’”
James Thomson said, “HomeKit feels like it’s in maintenance mode until Matter and Thread become mainstream, and remains as reliable as ever. Which is not a compliment. At least we got an orange HomePod mini.”
Rob Griffiths said, “It mostly works. Sort of like most internet of things devices. I hate the UI, but it’s unlikely to ever change.”