![]() ![]() When you install these systems, you should also be able to use individual device apps to piece together better information about which of your devices are consuming the most energy as you work from home. The beauty of this is that if your home is empty, HomeKit will let the thermostat know to turn your heating down. ![]() ![]() Numerous companies including ecobee, Emerson, Eve, Honeywell and others offer HomeKit-compatible smart thermostats. Another is to install HomeKit-connected power outlets and light switches in order to protect against accidentally leaving the power on. One way to mitigate against such shocks would be to install smart energy meters and HomeKit thermostats. While the lockdown triggered a 50% to 75% reduction in global road traffic, residential electricity use surged. What this means is that when we work from home, the use of home lighting and heating systems increases, potentially exposing already stressed remote workers to energy bill shocks. That way you don’t even need to think about the lighting set-up. The great thing about HomeKit is you can create a Siri shortcut to set the light to appropriate settings for video conferencing, automate this, and then tie the alert to your Zoom diary. It has four brightness levels and 10 color temperatures, so it should help you create the right “vibe” for home working and provide additional light so you can look better than your artfully placed books on the shelf behind you while engaged in a video conference. This is an iMore-recommendedfoldable desk lamp featuring a Qi wireless charging area at its base, so you can use the HomeKit/Siri-controlled light at your desk while keeping your iPhone charged up. Philips makes a range of additional HomeKit-compatible lighting systems, but iPhone users may also want to take a look at the Santala Smart LED Desk Lamp. There’s more to smart lighting than Philips Hue lightbulbs. Supplement this with smart plugs, such as the iHome iSP6, which let you add some intelligence to standing lamps and other electrical items in your home office. This is a useful way to safely power up and automate your printer(s) and other work-related equipment. The Eve Energy Strip, for example, has built-in surge protection and offers three smart-plug sockets, each of which can be controlled remotely. You can put a little HomeKit intelligence inside older devices in your home using HomeKit-connected power strips and plugs. The latter is particularly important in the remote working era – and HomeKit-secured routers provide a high degree of endpoint security. These will help maximize both your home network availability and HomeKit device security. This effectively makes your smart HomeKit devices unavailable to those outside of your network, which helps prevent various kinds of attack.īoth eero and Linksys now offer mesh routers that support both better Wi-Fi coverage and security in the form of HomeKit-secured routers: the Linksys Velop Mesh Wi-Fi system, eero and eero Pro. To help with this, Apple has introduced its HomeKit-secured router program, which provides additional protection to smart devices on your home network. When it comes to getting smart homes online, security also matters. This is particularly useful if you share your home, as it gives everyone more options to get online while giving each other a little more space. If your home has patchy Wi-Fi coverage, an investment in a mesh-based Wi-Fi system should help deliver better connectivity wherever you are in your home. ![]() So, what HomeKit systems may help remote workers? Get a HomeKit router Apple hosts a comprehensive user guide to the system here. Usually, you get the item, enable it with the device manufacturer’s own app, and then connect it to HomeKit, which then takes control. It makes use of iCloud and lets you share controls with everyone in your home. Once it's set up, HomeKit lets devices from different manufacturers work together. The HomeKit app can be accessed from any Apple device, and lets you group connected accessories and create smart settings: Work, TV and sleep modes, for example. How HomeKit worksĪpple’s HomeKit works with Siri to automate your home. I’ve included links to manufacturer sites from which you’ll find local availability and pricing. The following HomeKit solutions may help with some of these issues – in this case, optimizing the work-from-home experience. The pandemic has exposed both the social and economic need for such access. homes lack broadband access, and many, particularly in rural areas, endure expensive or unreliable connectivity. In some cases, it means providing employees currently quarantined in poor/cramped living conditions with extra help and health support, and better tools, such as higher-quality broadband. ![]()
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