Melissa Madsen’s Posthaven

A few months ago, a friend and colleague mentioned that he had installed Mirabella Genio smart light globes at home, that they operate from their phones. Initially, I discounted the idea of using something similar in my home. We had moved not long ago into a newly built home, with recessed lighting in the ceiling in most rooms, which seemed at first glance to obviate any need for smart lights.

Except when I thought about it some more, I realised that the lights we use in most rooms are not the recessed lighting in the ceiling, but stand-alone lamps, many of them vintage. And for the most part, these lamps were inaccessible to me - either I could not reach to switch them on/off, or the switches were too hard to operate.

I started to research options for smart lights that could provide a greater degree of accessibility, and ideally be controlled by voice command. I quickly found that voice control would only be achievable with a smart home platform - Amazon's Alexa Hub, Google Nest Hub or Apple Homekit Hub.

Decision #1: Which smart home platform?

Apple is not the obvious choice in this field - more devices support Amazon's Alexa and Google Nest, and their home hub devices are wider in variety and cheaper. Amazon's Alexa supports Android and iOS devices, whilst Apple Homekit supports only iOS devices. However, as a household, we are Apple die-hards, deep in the Apple ecosystem. 

I was keen to proceed with this project with existing devices wherever possible, i.e. not needing to purchase new devices was a bonus. And our Apple TV 4K was able to be an Apple Home Hub. This meant that Apple was our chosen smart home platform. In retrospect, the Apple Home app was an added bonus, available on macOS and iOS devices, and easy to use. 

Decision #2: Existing Apple ID or new Apple ID?

Both my partner and I have our own Apple IDs. Having just gone through an exercise to disentangle accounts from an ISP-provided email address after the ISP decided that it no longer wanted to provision email, I was keen to ensure that any accounts used to operate the house 'infrastructure' were equally accessible to both of us. 

This meant creating a new email address (Gmail account) and a new Apple ID based on that new email address. I then set up Family Sharing with the new Apple ID as the family organiser, and our personal Apple IDs as 'family members'. This meant that configuration of smart devices would be independent of both our personal Apple IDs, but management of devices in Apple's Home app could be shared with the personal accounts. 

It is worth bearing in mind that Apple Family Sharing appears to be intended for parents to manage their kids' usage. As such, it has some limitations, particularly around purchase sharing. 

Setting up our existing Apple TV 4K as a home hub required a change of default user to the new family Apple ID. The Apple TV was a gift to my partner a couple of years ago, and very much her domain. It appeared for a while that changing default user would mean my partner losing her personal settings, so we put this on hold.

Decision #3: Which Apple Home Hub device?

Decision #4: Which smart lights?

We have so far configured seven smart lights in five different rooms. These lights can be managed using the Apple Home app on macOS and iOS devices (including Apple Watches), or via voice command using 'Hey Siri' in the presence of an Apple HomePod or a macOS or iOS device. Four of these lights have automations set up to switch on the lights at a certain time each day, and switch them off at another designated time. A bit like a mechanical timer switch, except one that does not need to be reset if the power goes out. 

Most importantly, lights that were previously inaccessible to me are now accessible.

Afternote: And the Apple TV 4K?

Initially we decided not to proceed with using the Apple TV 4K as a home hub. However, we have just recently taken a deep breath and set up the Apple TV 4K as a home hub. Fortunately, this did not result in any loss of settings for my partner. The motivation for revisiting this decision was the possibility of using a stereo pair of Apple HomePod Minis as TV speakers. (The Apple HomePod Minis were bought through Facebook Marketplace - one nearly new, the other brand new, and still with cellophane wrapping intact - for a substantial discount over retail price.) 

This proved to be one of the most fiddly/tricky parts of this project, as the Apple TV 4K did not recognise the HomePods until it was disconnected from ethernet. Further investigation is required to see if we can get the HomePods to work as speakers whilst the Apple TV 4K is connected to ethernet.

Final thoughts