Our home just got smarter

The Apple Home-app in iOS 10 lets you control any “Works with Apple HomeKit” accessory. You can organize your accessories by room, manage multiple accessories at the same time, control your home with Siri, and more.

HomeOur domotica adventure has started with a Philips Hue color ambiance starter kit, including a Philips Hue-Bridge and 3 lamps. The Hue-Bridge is connected to our Apple AirPort Express in the livingroom, using a network cable and therefore visible in our WiFi-network. The Hue-app is connected with the Hue-Bridge. Than we’ve put the 3 lamps in existing armatures and these became visible in the Hue-app. By connecting the Hue-app with the Home-app, the lamps are also visible overthere.

Meanwhile, the number of lamps has been expanded. In the kitchen are three lamps (containing white ambiance lamps) on the cabinets and hangs a color lightstrip under the kitchen cabinets, above the sink. In the office is a lamp between our desks containing a white ambiance lamp.

The house is divided into 4 rooms; lounge, dining area, kitchen and office. The respective lights are part of such a room. There are also a number of scenes. Using scenes you can switch on/off all included lamps at once and set the style depending on the type of scene in terms of color and intensity.

One of our iPads is configured as a hub, so when outside our WiFi network we still can operate the lights, via iCloud.