HomeKit products of every nature are coming fast and furious as of late, and that trend should now only increase since Apple has lessened its hardware requirement restrictions and is allowing software verification for new HomeKit products. The three products we are talking about today, though, are hardware compliant, and each fill a unique need in the smart home environment.
Elgato Eve Weather Station
Elgato makes some of the cooler HomeKit accessories available today, and the Eve Weather Station is no slouch. Fitting easily in the palm of your hand, the beautifully polished Eve Weather Station is an indoor or outdoor temperature sensor and humidity sensor that report directly back to HomeKit. The simple is setup, take it out of the box and mount it to a wall using the embedded screw hole on its back, pair to HomeKit, and that’s it. I have Ecobee thermostats in my house, and they already report back humidity and temperature inside my home, along with the 11 external sensors I have throughout the house, so no need for this internally. Mounted on my covered patio wall, surely this thing is going to go through extremes with the Vegas heat fast approaching. The display is large and easy to read, and it is convenient to have Siri tell you the temperature and humidity outside of your home.
The unit contains a user replaceable watch battery which should be good for months and months at a time, and easy to handle. This is a simple and elegant piece, and I do the one the convenience of having the beautiful digital readout alongside the ability to see it in the Home app and Siri functionality. The Elgato Eve certainly isn’t “must-have” technology, but I’ve had this installed a couple weeks and I certainly can’t imagine living without it now.
Elgato Eve Door and Window Sensor
I travel for my job a week or two out of every month, and I am always off on vacation or at Disney when I’m not working. That leaves my mother to take care of my pets, and sometimes my kid also is there. Security is a must. Elgato has a very slick addition to HomeKit I am very happy with, the Eve Door and Window Sensor. I have four doors in and out of my home, so I picked up four of these from Amazon.
Setup is a breeze. The unit is powered by a half AA battery, which last months, and out of the box, is pretty much ready to go. You have to build up the unit going on the door so it is level with the piece on the frame, and luckily Elgato has provided extra pieces to make this happen. The unit detects an open or close state from the magnetic sensors being moved away or towards each other. The Eve Door and Window reports this state back to HomeKit, and you can choose to turn on notifications for it. I have my notifications on, but only when I’m not at home because my doors are constantly being opened and closed. It can get maddening. Both the Eve Weather Station and this Door and Window Sensor require immediate firmware updates through the Eve app, but that’s pretty much all you need the Eve app for as HomeKit does everything else.
Logitech Pop Button
Several of these HomeKit smart buttons have popped up in the marketplace, and the Logitech is one of the easiest to use. Since all the lights in my house are controlled by HomeKit, I prefer my switches stay on, and they turn off and on schedules I have set in HomeKit, or by voice through Siri. But I do have a mother and child who have issues always using Siri, so I picked up two of the Logitech Pop buttons, used the included adhesive to mount above my light switch, and now I have on/off for each floor. Very easy.
Out of the box, setup was a breeze. The hub sets up through the app, then adds to HomeKit, along with whatever buttons you have paired. You can program through routines or scenes through the button: a single press, double press and long press. For me, that single press is all lights off, double is all lights on, and long press is all lights on dimmed. But you can program any HomeKit device or scene onto the button, making these little, inexpensive buttons a must for a large smart home setup.