Wish List

HomeKit is great, but there is always room for improvement, right? Here is my wish list for new HomeKit features:

  • HomeKit Communications: Make HomeKit communications more responsive, less chatty, more efficient, more reliable

  • Icons: Add tons and tons of icons, and don't limit them by type: Christmas lights, garland lights, wreath lights, other holiday-themed lights (Halloween, etc), more light fixture styles, outdoor lights, locks, alarms, appliances, and more scene icons. Alternatively (or additionally?) allow us to add our own icons.

  • Automation Management:

    • Name Automations in native HomeKit app

    • Sort Automations

    • Group related automations into folders

    • Enable/Disable all related automations in a folder with a single toggle

    • Move disabled automations/groups into a Disabled Folder at bottom of list

    • Use case for the above: More often than not it takes more than one automation to build a complete automated task, for example one automation to turn something on and another to turn something off. When making changes, it would be a huge improvement if it was easier to identify and find related automations. As an example, I have fifteen automations that are all used when on vacation. They are scattered and mixed randomly with all of my other automations, making them hard to find. Each time I go on vacation, I have to hunt for these 15 automations (did I get them all?), and then enter the automation to "enable" it. Reverse the process when getting back from vacation. Wouldn't it be nice, if I could name all of the automations with a useful description? Wouldn't it be even nicer to group them all together, in a folder? And now that they are all in a folder, how about enabling them all with a single toggle?

  • Auto Room Detection: When I am in the Living Room, automatically show me the Living Room when I open the Home app.

  • Dashboard Screen:

    • Optimized for wall-mounted iPads

    • Options for sizable clock and weather widgets

    • Complete (within reason) freedom in size and placement of device and scene buttons (and widgets)

    • Music Control widget that can be added to HomeKit dashboard

  • Dynamic Page: add a page that changes devices, scene buttons and specific device status on the time of day

  • Widgets/Control Center: freedom in size and placement of device and scene buttons

  • Improved Scenes Layout: The wide Scene buttons only allow two full-sized and two half-sized buttons on portrait iPhone screens. The horizontal scrolling to access additional scenes is terrible.

  • Grant 3rd Party Developers feature parity

  • Backup HomeKit Database, Versioning, Restore

  • Granular Permissions to Rooms, Devices, and Scenes and/or custom screens for users (and groups of users)

  • Group HomePods in Scenes/Automatons

  • HomePod Improvements:

    • dedicated app (like Sonos) (or add a screen to the Music app)

    • add a smaller, less expensive option

    • add built-in wi-fi access point mesh network capability

    • add line input

    • add ethernet

    • add intercom functionality

    • improve intercom functionality (faster, more responsive)

    • ability to easily record custom Siri-spoken announcements/sounds for use with automations

  • Advanced Shortcuts: we can get a HomeKit device state and save it to a variable, but I would also like to be able to set a HomeKit device state in automations

  • Vacation Mode: Add support for a Vacation Mode automation. Should allow you to select which lights would be affected, time before and after dusk/dawn when it would go into effect. It should be smart enough to limit the randomization of when lights that turn on and off so that it looks natural.

  • Sensor Data Logging: sensor data logs and graphs available in Home app, with an option to export data

  • HomeKit Logging: search and filter the log for troubleshooting, export for additional data gathering