Flowchart

To get started, take a look at this flowchart below which outlines how the automation actually works. This should make it a little easier to understand what’s going to happen and what I’m explaining.

The Automation

To get started, open the Home app and Long/3D press on the smart button icon. Choose one of the actions and select “add scenes and accessories”. In that menu, scroll all the way to the bottom of the list and choose “Convert to Shortcut”.

Open the actions list, and choose “Get Date” and then set the variable as “current date”. So the automation should read “Get dates from Current Date”.

For the next action we want to format the date into short form. So choose the action “Format Date” and the variable should automatically assign itself to the date from the previous action. In that same action, choose “show more” and change Date Format to none and Time Format to short.

For the third action, we want to round the short format time to a single number. So choose the “Round Number” action and assign the variable to “Formatted Date” and have it rounded to “ones place”. And that’s all that is needed for the first half of this automation. So if the time is 11:30 PM at night, than the rounded number will be “23” (this automations works in 24 hour time).

For the next half of this automation, grab an If Statement and make the condition “If [Smart Light/Device] is off” and within that, use multiple if statements to determine the time and thus the action. For example, in my automation I have “If Rounded Number is between 7 and 10″ turn on the daytime scene”. Continue this until you have all the actions that you want and delete the otherwise tags for all of those inner If Statements. For the outer if statement, within the otherwise tag set the lights to turn off.

Thus, when the automation runs it’ll trigger when you press the button. It checks the time and then checks if the light is on or off. If it is off, then it will compare the rounded down time to the if statements and complete whatever action you set. If the lights are on, it’ll turn them off. And that’s all there is to it. As for the second and third actions of the button, you can do whatever you want. You can use it to control other lights or have it set scenes in its dedicated room. Automation runs as far as your imagination can.

For a visual look at this automation, check out the photo below so you can see what it should look like for you.

The post Advanced Smart Button Light Switch appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

Disclaimer: It will not be as perfect as an occupancy sensor but it’ll do some justice.

The post HomeKit Automations – Occupancy Light Sensor appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

The Cygnett Smart Wi-Fi Power Board contains 4 outlets and 2 USB ports with LED indicators. Using a smart device or voice assistant, you can turn on/off Wi-Fi, which is provided with surge protection.

Features:

• Consists of 4 outlets and 2 USB ports
• Each port has LED indicators
• Surge protection
• Master on/off switch
• Turn on/off using your smart device or voice assistant (HomeKit, Alexa, or Google)
• 1m lead length
• 2 × 2.1A total USB-A ports

The Cygnett Smart Wi-Fi LED Light Strip has a strong adhesive and a dramatic design statement to hide under shelves. It creates vivid colours and soft whites that accentuate the beauty.

Features

• 2m long LED strip
• 1000lm bright
• Strong 3m adhesive
• Dramatic design statement to hide under shelves or behind your TV
• White colour temperature adjustment
• Creates vivid colours and soft whites
• Includes power adapter

There is also a 1M Extension Strip for the LED Strip which can be purchased separately for AUD$39.95 boasting the following features:

• Add a 1m extension to your main 2M Smart Light strip
• Super bright 1000 lm
• White colour temperature adjustment
• Creates vivid colours and soft whites for accenting details
• White colour temp adjustment (Cool/Warm & Day/Night)
• Strong 3M adhesive

Personally, I think this is a great move on Cygnett’s part offering alternatives to popular brands such as Lifx with their Z LED Light Strip that starts at AUD$125 or Philips Hue Bluetooth Light Strip that starts at AUD$134, as well as offering the first Apple HomeKit Power Board to Australian consumers.

Cygnett is upping their game in the smart home environment and is becoming one of the popular competitors and you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be purchasing these very soon to review!

The post Cygnett release new Smart Power Board and LED Strip for Australian Consumers appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

The aim of these automations is to reduce the need to reach for your phone or activate Siri. After all, Home Automation is supposed to be convenient, so you should be able to set these automations and never think about them again.

1. Smart Wake Up Light

Start your day feeling more relaxed and energised by setting a Smart Bulb to slowly increase in brightness before your alarm goes off. Personally, I have it set up to increase the brightness to 50% over 15 minutes.

We’ll achieve this using Siri Shortcuts and it can be accomplished in two ways.

1. Create individual HomeKit scenes to increment the lighting brightness by 10%
2. Or manually set the brightness in the automation.

What you’ll need:

• Smart Light Bulb
• Siri Shortcuts to create a HomeKit Automation

Rules:

• Create a “Time of Day” Automation in Shortcuts and choose the time you want the automation to run.
• Convert the Automation to a Shortcut
• Start by choosing “Control Home” and setting the light to reset to 0% brightness.
• In the scripting menu, choose a wait action and set it to wait for 3 minutes (180 seconds).
• After the wait action, choose a “Control Home” action again and set the brightness to 10%.
• Repeat this until the lights reach 50%

2. Begin to Light Up your house as the sun sets.
As the sun starts going down your house is going to get dark. Set your lights to turn on automatically over a period of time so you aren’t left in darkness when the sun goes down for the night. This will work the same way that the previous automation worked, only with different rules.

If you’re using a group of Smart Lights for this it’ll be easier to create a set of scenes that increase the brightness of them in increments of 10.

What you’ll need:

• Smart Light Bulb or a group of smart lights
• Siri Shortcuts to create a HomeKit Automation

Rules:

• Create a “Time of Day Automation” in Shortcuts and select the “Sunset” option.
• Convert the Automation to a Shortcut.
• Choose the “Control Home” action and reset the lights to 0%.
• In the scripting menu, choose a Wait action and set it to wait for however long you wish.
• After the wait action, choose the “Control Home” action again and increase the lights to 10%
• Repeat this until the lights reach the brightness you choose.

To take this a step further, you can add an If Statement in the scripting menu to have this only run if the lights are off.

3. Turn on the Lights in a Room when a Door Sensor is triggered
Never enter a room in darkness again. Set a group of lights to switch on when you open your door and never reach for your phone or the light switch again.

What you’ll need:

• A Smart Light or a Group of Smart Lights
• A Door/Window Sensor
• A third-party Home app such as Home+, Eve, or Siri Shortcuts to add additional conditions (optional)

Rules:

• Create a new Automation for when “A Sensor Detects Something”.
• Set the Automation to trigger when the door “opens”.
• When the door opens set a scene to activate.

To take this a step further, use Siri Shortcuts or a third-party app to add additional conditions:

• Add a condition that the automation will only run when the lights are off. Otherwise, the lights will reset whenever the door opens.

4. Automated Night Light
When you’re trying to find your way through your house at night it would be much easier if you had some light to guide you. Set up an automation that’ll set the lights to a low brightness when a motion sensor detects movement during the night.

What you’ll need:

• Motion Sensor
• Smart Lights

Rules:

• Create a new Automation for when “A Sensor Detects Something”.
• Set the Automation trigger when the motion sensor “detects motion”.
• Add a time-condition to only set the automation run between 12:00 AM and the time you wake up.
• When the motion sensor detects motion, set a scene to run in which a group of lights come on at low brightness.

5. 15-Second Light Timer
When you’re passing through a room you might want a bit of light to guide you. You don’t have a Motion Sensor or Smart Button in that room so how will you automate the lights? We can use a Virtual Light Switch to achieve this.

This will require you to have HomeBridge so you can download the plugin that creates a virtual switch that’ll turn itself off after fifteen seconds. More details can be found here.

What you’ll need:

• A Virtual Switch that turns off after 15 seconds.
• Smart Lights

Rules:

• Create a new Automation for when “an accessory is controlled”.
• Set the automation to run when the virtual switch is turned on.
• When it turns on, turn on the lights in the room.
• Repeat this and create an automation that turns the lights off when the virtual switch turns off.

Now all you’ll need to do is tell Siri to turn the virtual switch on and you can pass through the room and worry about the lights turning themselves off.

6. Turn on a Fan or Air Conditioner with a Temperature Sensor
If you have a Temperature/Humidity sensor in your setup, put it to good use and have it switch the Air Conditioner or a Fan on when the temperature becomes too hot for your liking. We can’t set this up directly in HomeKit as the Home app doesn’t let us use Temperature sensors in an automation so we’ll need a third-party app.

What you’ll need:

• A Smart Thermostat or Smart Fan/A Fan connected to a Smart Plug
• A Temperature/Humidity Sensor
• A third-party app that can create HomeKit Automations such as Eve or Home+

Rules:

• Using a third-party app, create an automation that is triggered when the temperature becomes greater than 30.0°C (for example).
• When this happens, trigger a fan or air conditioner to turn on.
• You can then turn this off after a certain amount of time or by creating a second automation that turns it off when the temperature drops below a certain temperature.

7. Complete your entire night routine in one command
Rather than running multiple automations to lock down your house and then set an alarm to wake up the next morning. Create a Siri Shortcut that does all of this with one single command.

What you’ll need:

• A HomeKit Scene that turns off the lights, locks the doors, stops the music, etc.
• Siri Shortcuts.

Rules:

• Create a new Shortcut that activates the scene to lock down your house.
• Add an action to the shortcut that turns on your wake up alarm.
• Additionally, you can add extra actions like muting your phone volume and setting it to Do Not Disturb.
• Finally, trigger the shortcut by activating Siri and giving her the name of the shortcut.

8. Wake up in warmth not cold
We can all relate to this. We wake up in the morning only for it to be freezing in your house. We don’t want to get out of bed so our daily routine is thrown off schedule. If you have an outdoor temperature sensor, such as the Eve Outdoor, or even an indoor temperature sensor, you can set your thermostat to heat your house as you begin to wake up.

What you’ll need:

• An indoor or outdoor Temperature Sensor.
• A Smart Thermostat

Rules:

• Set the automation only to run in the morning before you wake up.
• When the Temperature inside or outside is below a certain degree (for example 19.5°C) turn the heating on.
• Turn it off after a certain amount of times or when your house reaches the ideal temperature.

Take it a step further by setting it to only run when somebody is home.

9. Change the lights to blue when there is a water leak
There’s nothing worse than being blissfully unaware of a water leak in your house. Fix this by putting a water leak sensor in an area where leaks are common and set an automation to alert you if it detects a leak.

What you’ll need:

• A Water Leak Sensor
• A Smart Light or Group of Smart Lights (which have RGB capabilities)
• An Apple HomePod (optional)

Rules:

• Create a new automation that is triggered when the sensor detects a leak
• When this happens: Change the lights to blue and 100%
• Optionally, if you want an audible alert as well set a HomePod to play an Alarm Sound Effect from Apple Music.

10. Motion Controlled Lighting (Occupancy Style)

Occupancy sensors are hard to come by so why not use a Motion Sensor as a makeshift occupancy sensor to trigger your lights to come on and off when someone is in the room.

What you’ll need:

• A Motion Sensor
• A Smart Light

Rules:

• Create a basic automation that turns on the lights when motion is detected. (Add time conditions as you wish).
• Now we’ll create the automation to switch off the light.
  • Create a new automation in Siri Shortcuts and set it to when “A Sensor Detects Something”, select the same motion sensor from your original automation and select “Stops Detecting Motion”.
  • In the “Scripting” menu select “If” and set the condition to “If a Lamp in the room is on”.
  • Within the “If” statement add a Repeat action and set it to repeat “30 times” or as you wish.
  • Within the Repeat action, add a “Wait” action and set it to wait 3 seconds.
  • After the wait action, add a second If Statement and set the condition to “If the motion sensor detects motion”.
  • Within this If Statement, add an “Exit shortcut” action and leave it as default.
  • We’re finished with the second If Statement and the Repeat action.
  • After the “End Repeat” action, add a “Control Home” action and set it to turn the lights off.
  • And that’s all there is to it.

The post Best HomeKit Automation Ideas For You to Try appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

LIFX Clean

It’s called the LiFX Clean and it is exactly as it sounds; It is the “world’s first disinfecting anti-bacterial smart light” that is capable of disinfecting surfaces and surrounding air. LIFX has said that this new light will “launch an entirely new category of smart lighting”. Not only can the light illuminate a selected area or room of the house, but can also abolish harmful bacteria.

Design

The LiFX Clean will be an extension of the design of the current LiFX A19/A60 bulbs, thus offering a white and colour light that can be controlled with the LIFX app, as well as smart home assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and more importantly… Apple HomeKit.

Summary

In a letter addressed to the Australian Share Market, the following points were made about the LIFX Clean:

• LiFX Clean is a fully functional white + colour smart light that also uses germicidal antibacterial light to disinfect surfaces and surrounding air
• In a smart lighting world-first, by using 405 nanometre High Energy Visible (HEV) light that is safe for humans, pets and plants, LiFX Clean offers an effortless way to maximise the cleanliness of home environments
• LiFX Clean has passed efficacy testing in laboratory testing conducted by the Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology at Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology, as well as IEC and safety testing at UL Verification Services in Guangzhou
• Whilst LIFX Clean is currently in the testing queue for efficacy against the SARS-CoV-2 virus (which can cause the COVID-19 disease), no claim is currently being made that the product is effective in an antiviral capacity of any kind, including on SARS-CoV-2
• Priced at A$99.99 / US$69.99 / CA$79.99 / €69.99 / £59.99, LIFX Clean is an affordable and accessible new anti-bacterial product, providing broad access to consumers in a time of enormous demand for cleaning products. It is expected to be released to the market in calendar Q4.

Cost and Launch

The LiFX Clean will be sold as a standalone bulb and will be priced at $99.99 AUD and will be sold initially in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Europe. Further safety tests are required for the US and Canada due to different regulatory requirements. So whilst the LiFX Clean won’t be sold at launch in North America, it will be coming soon.

The LiFX Clean will be launched via pre-sales on Lifx.com and is expected to be available at retail locations in the fourth quarter of 2020.

The post LiFX Announce New ‘LiFX Clean’ – World’s First Antibacterial Smart Bulb appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

For my use case, I want the lights to blink when my vacuum cleaner has finished cleaning but this can be used for any sensor or device that can be automated in HomeKit. However, if you want to try this out with your vacuum you’ll need to have it exposed to HomeKit. There aren’t any vacuum cleaners currently certified with HomeKit but I was able to use a Roborock plugin for HomeBridge to expose my Mi Robot vacuum to the Home app.

Based on the way my vacuum has been set up in HomeBridge, it creates an occupancy sensor that triggers when the vacuum returns to the dock which is what I’ll be using as my condition for this automation.

To get started, we want to create a new automation in the Home app, and choose the “a sensor detects something” option for the automation. I have yet to test it but you can likely use this “when an accessory is controlled” as well. To continue, I’ll be selecting my “Robot Vacuum Dock” and then when it “detects occupancy”.

From here, instead of choosing an accessory to trigger, we’re going to scroll to the bottom and select “Convert to Shortcut”. However, to do this you need to have an up to date home hub such as a current model iPad, Apple TV 4 or later, or an Apple HomePod. Once you select Convert to Shortcut, we’ll clear the “Set Scenes and Accessories” and start with a blank console. Press “Add Action” and search for the “Repeat” action. We’re going to set that to repeat three times so the lights will blink three times, but that is ultimately up to you.

Once you have your repeat action setup, we’ll start by choosing the “Control Home” option and we’re going to set a light to turn on to 100%, I’m using my Living Room Lamp as it’s in a common area of the house. We’re going to put that Control Home action within the Repeat and End Repeat tags.

Next, find the “Wait” action in scripting and we’re going to set that to one second, again that is up to you how long the light stays on. Finally, choose the “Control Home” option again and this time we’ll set the light to turn off. Make sure the Wait and second control home are within the Repeat tags and come after the first control home option, and your shortcut should look similar to what I have in the image below.

When you’re finished, save that shortcut and you’re finished. You’ll notice now when the vacuum returns to the dock (or whatever you decide to automate, maybe a door sensor or when a smart plug is turned on), the lights will blink three times to let you know that the vacuum has finished its job.

The post Flashing Light Alert with Shortcuts appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

Using a motion sensor, I was able to create a motion-activated night light that would turn on my light strip between the hours of 1 AM and 7:15 AM when a motion detector detected motion. Lighting up the room just enough for me to see but not so bright that I was blinded.

The best part of this Automation is that it can be created solely in the Apple Home app with a time condition. Of course, if you wanted to take it a step further you could use the Home+ or Eve app, but that is for another day.

To see how I achieved this simple automation, check out my video below:

The post Creating a Motion Activated Night Light appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

For example, I set up an automation to have my bedroom lights turn on to my nighttime scene whenever the door was opened between 5:30 and 9:45 PM. It worked as expected but in the cases where I changed the setting of my lights and the door was opened again, it would reset them to the nighttime scene. I needed a way to fix this so I immediately thought of editing the automation to only run when the lights in my bedroom were off.

The Apple Home app doesn’t allow for these types of conditions so I needed an alternative. That’s where the Eve for HomeKit app comes in. Using the Eve app allows for more powerful triggers and conditions for HomeKit automations, and below’s video shows you exactly how I took advantage of the Eve App to create these condition-based automations.

The post Using Eve Home to Create Condition-Based Automations appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

Not wanting to let the scarcity of Smart Switches get in the way of my home automation journey, I decided to look at things another way. I decided to repurpose the Cygnett Smart Control Button, which I recently purchased, and use the Home+ app to create a condition-based automation for when the button is pressed.

The best part of this is you can have a single click for turning on and off, and then save the double click and long press for activating different scenes or for controlling other accessories around your home.

The video below will show you exactly how I accomplished this:

The post Using a Smart Button as a Smart Light Switch With Home+ appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.

The Australian HomeKit game changed in 2019 with popular phone accessory brand Cygnett announcing their new range of smart home devices including smart light bulbs, power outlets, temperature sensors, motion sensors, door & window sensors, and smart control buttons. The biggest part of this announcement was that these devices would all be compatible with Apple HomeKit.

Despite this news, it seemed there wasn’t much chatter about these game-changing products online and I myself did not even find out about them until earlier this year. A few weeks ago I had the joy of finally purchasing their Smart Home Starter Kit for AUD$200. After experiencing the products for a couple of weeks I can finally share my thoughts on these products with you as well as examine its features, uses, and pros and cons.

PACKAGING/FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The first thing I noticed about the Starter Kit was that it came in a surprisingly small box which initially had me thinking: “they’ve packed a hub and four sensors into this?”. When I finally had a chance to open the box I was amazed at how small the hub actually was. It didn’t take up much space and was able to fit on my desk without obstructing anything else.

Also included in the box was one of their Temperature/Humidity Sensors, a Motion Sensor, a Smart Button, and a Door/Window Sensor. The devices were quite compact and I could tell that they wouldn’t be an eyesore and could blend into their surroundings. The devices were securely packaged with foam inserts and the exterior of the box lets you know that this is a professional, high-quality device.

SETUP

Setup of the smart hub was quite straight forward and required plugging in the hub using the include Micro USB cable. There was no adaptor for this so I had to use an old iPhone adaptor. A few seconds later, the hub was ready for pairing.

All that needed to be done was to download the Cygnett Smart app, register an account and pair the hub. Note here that you need to select Apple Home Setup and you will be redirected to the Home app where you scan the HomeKit code (that is plastered in multiple locations on the box, in the instructions and on the hub itself) and it will return you to the Cygnett app to finish the setup by naming the hub. Immediately I noticed a firmware update was available, however, both of my attempts failed to which I reset the hub and tried again which still failed. I wasn’t sure what the issue was so I ignored the update and continued with the setup. Later I noticed that the Hub did in fact update the firmware itself so I put it done to teething issues.

With the hub connected, it was time to set up the devices. It was a simple process and you just need to use the included screwdriver to open the backs of the devices, remove the battery pull tab and then hold down the pair/reset buttons on the devices. Move to the Smart App where you can press the “+” button, or alternatively press the power button on the hub, and it will search for the devices and pair them to the hub. You will know when the hub is in pairing mode by a vocal feedback message.

Once this is done you can move to the Apple Home app where the devices will appear and from there you can customise their name, locations and icon. It is important to note that the Cygnett Smart app doesn’t really give you many options to modify and automate the devices however it does show you logs of detected motion, doors opening and closing, and when buttons are pushed.

Once the devices are setup you can peel off the adhesive backing and stick the devices onto the wall. My concern with this was that the adhesive covered the backs of the devices where you need to open them to access the battery so when it comes to replacing batteries you will need to also replace the adhesive. Cygnett does cover you with extra adhesive for the first round of battery changes but after that, you are on your own to find a solution.

INITIAL THOUGHTS
My first instinct before mounting the devices was testing the range of the Smart Button, so I moved through different areas of my house and tested it out. Surprisingly, it worked more than 40 meters away which gave me high hopes for buying additional buttons for around the house. I didn’t have a chance to test the range of the other devices but I would presume the range would be similar.

After mounting the devices to the wall, I set up a few basic automations and enabled notifications. All I had to say was “wow!”. The devices had an almost instant response time and triggered automations right away. Given that the Hub is Wi-Fi and not Ethernet-enabled I had concerns there about communication but for once I am actually happy with my NBN service.

DAY TO DAY USAGE
Given that the devices are currently located in my bedroom I put them to good use with automating my lights to come on when motion is detected or a door is opened. I further automated these using the Home+ app but that is for another time.

Since then I’ve noticed myself rarely using my phone to control the devices as I have the automations scheduled exactly to my liking and at nights I can hold down the smart button and turn everything off.

I have faced a small issue with the button, that being that it sometimes fails to respond. I believe though that this is a common HomeKit problem as the button needs to communicate to the hub so it might be time to retire the old iPad Air and purchase an Apple HomePod. Other than that, it works exactly as expected and makes it much easier for those who aren’t as technologically competent to control the lights in my room. Additionally, with the lack of smart switches in Australia, these smart buttons are a great alternative for the time being.

The Hub also has a Smart IR feature to be able to control infrared enabled devices, such as TVs and Air Conditioners, with the Cygnett Smart App, however, I am yet to use that feature and do not intend to use this feature as you cannot use the Apple Home option and Smart IR option at the same time.

Other than this, the Sensors help me keep an eye on my room when I’m not at home so I know when someone is going in there without my knowledge. Next up is to add a security camera.

COMPATIBILITY WITH OTHER SYSTEMS
The box does say that the devices are compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Home. I do not use Google Home but I do have an Amazon Echo which I did link the Cygnett Smart Skill to. However, it only exposed the Door Sensor and Temperature Sensors which I did not intend to use. I did create an automation to have Alexa announce when the door is opened though. Needless to say, I disabled that less than a day later. If you do want to use the Button and Motion Sensors with Alexa this probably isn’t the product for you.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Ultimately, the Cygnett Starter Kit is reasonably priced and the devices are very affordable which make them a perfect addition to any HomeKit setup. Like all technology, the devices have their advantages and disadvantages.

Pros

• The Cygnett Smart Range uses the Zigbee protocol meaning that all devices connect to one central hub rather than connecting individually to wi-fi.
• Individual devices are cheaper than similar devices on the market such as Eve and Logitech.
• Can all be controlled solely from the Apple Home App.
• Cygnett customer service as extremely helpful and they have a range of videos online to support customers.
• Starter Kit comes with all the tools to set up the hub including power cord and screwdriver as well as extra adhesive.
• Cygnett Smart App records button presses, motion detection logs and door open and closing logs.

Cons

• Hub connects to Wi-Fi rather than Ethernet which could cause communication issues. However, I am yet to face them.
• The 3M adhesive can only be used once and after removing it to access the battery compartment you need to find another way to stick them to the wall again.
• Button sometimes fails to respond however this is a HomeKit issue, not a Cygnett issue.
• You can’t use Apple HomeKit and the IR Option for the hub at the same time. Additionally, you cannot control IR Devices connected to the Hub in Apple Home.

Despite this, I’d highly recommend the Cygnett Smart Hub to anyone looking to expand their smart home. With a lack of many notable brands in Australia, Cygnett is the best alternative to them and features many of the same devices. Fingers crossed, one day we’ll be able to get a Water Leak Sensor and Vibration Sensor added to the range.

If you have any questions about the hub feel free to leave a comment below and be sure to check out my unboxing of the hub on YouTube.

The post Cygnett Smart Home Starter Kit (review) appeared first on Homekit News and Reviews.