Apple HomeKit Integration

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Wyze, why are you still refusing to add HomeKit support to your “smart” devices despite overwhelming community support for several years? With the release of iOS14 on 9/16, HomeKit got a ton of new features, and with Apple’s pledge to privacy, it will be the only smart home solution I will use.

There’s no longer any reason for Wyze to continue to ignore this request. The most common complaints from developers or “smart device” manufacturers I hear are:

  1. Apple originally made it very cumbersome to develop on, as well as costly. This turned away many developers initially.

  2. HomeKit has higher physical hardware requirements than other solutions. This rules out some of Wyze’s current hardware like the V1/V2.

  3. HomeKit has a lower adoption rate than many of the alternatives (SmartThings, Google Assistant, Alexa). From a priority standpoint, I imagine Wyze is factoring this in as well.

Responses

  1. It’s partly true but that was to ensure privacy, and that barrier went away 2 years ago. Now all HomeKit authentication is done in Software but there IS an approval process.

  2. This has gone away entirely and all limitations are based on data usage and authentication. If someone is peddling a 2015 hardware (Wyze?!?) expects that Apple needs to be backwards compatible, that’s not exactly Apples responsibility. There are $10 smart plugs and $100 cameras that are HomeKit. Apple does have very specific limits on how and where users data is used and that turns off companies that don’t care about it or want to profit from it.

  3. Almost every iOS and MacOS device can use HomeKit, and it has the world largest single ecosystem. Some devices are now HomeKit only. Alexa ecosystem is a joke with their half baked Apps. Google Home is Ok but lack the privacy controls of HomeKit. Both Amazon and Google are two of the worst privacy offenders in tech.

I have tried to be unbiased in my purchases, but with the iOS14 HomeKit features, it’s hard to imagine any manufacturer that will not think of HomeKit support. Wyze did and unfortunately, their new camera is not HomeKit capable, and they chose to announce exactly on the same day iOS 14 with new HomeKit was announced. As of today, Wyze is off my list for Home cameras due to lack of HomeKit support. Eufy and Logitech will replace it.

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