Fibaro and HomeKit

Fibaro released its first HomeKit devices (flood sensor, door and motion sensors are on the way)

http://homekit.fibaro.com/

In their FAQ it states:

Will HomeKit accessories work with Home Center controller?

No, that feature is not available at the moment.

Which implies they're going to be having a homekit enabled version of their home centre at some point. Of course at the rate Fibaro work at that should be available for release some time in 2023. And be stable by 2027.

What would be the use of their HomeCenter controller when you have HomeKit ?
I have never seen a Homecenter, it is probably more advanced than HomeKit (and supports more devices) but I think/hope HomeKit will be able to do much more in the near future, and Fibaro certainly has seen the writing on the wall. If i were them I would stop investing in proprietary boxes...

That's actually a very valid point.. i was thinking of it from a point of view of being something like an insteon hub which support homekit.. but of course the individual devices for that DONT communicate with homekit.. and in this case they do.. so yes, you're absolutely right.. unless of course they plan to introduce a hub that extends their functionality beyond what homekit offers.

[jay (support)]

Which implies they're going to be having a homekit enabled version of their home centre at some point. Of course at the rate Fibaro work at that should be available for release some time in 2023. And be stable by 2027.

OR it could mean that their HK compatible devices will also (at some point) talk another protocol (i.e. Z-Wave) so that HC will be able to talk to them as well.

Though, if I know Apple, that's probably forbidden by HK licensing...

[jay (support)]

What would be the use of their HomeCenter controller when you have HomeKit ?
I have never seen a Homecenter, it is probably more advanced than HomeKit (and supports more devices) but I think/hope HomeKit will be able to do much more in the near future, and Fibaro certainly has seen the writing on the wall. If i were them I would stop investing in proprietary boxes...

Z-Wave is so entrenched now that HK will never supercede it completely, if for no other reason than it's even more proprietary than Z-Wave now that Sigma has opened up the specs. And that's not to even mention ZigBee, which is growing in popularity and is pretty much free. And there's Thread/Weave.

Apple is far from dominating this industry so there will always need to be hubs that integrate them all, and that won't be from Apple. Fibaro's specific implementation not withstanding, there's a lot of room for companies to provide integrated solutions significantly beyond what Apple will ever do.

Apple is far from dominating this industry so there will always need to be hubs that integrate them all, and that won't be from Apple. Fibaro's specific implementation not withstanding, there's a lot of room for companies to provide integrated solutions significantly beyond what Apple will ever do.

I agree, and I value very much the power of Indigo which integrates so many different protocols and hardware devices. We all understand it here, but I am afraid that the power of Apple, (or Google or Amazon) will wipe the rest of the market like the iPhone killed Nokia and Blackberry for example...

[jay (support)]

like the iPhone killed Nokia and Blackberry for example...

Apple and oranges. The phone market is a radically different market than the smarthome market. And, honestly, I have yet to see Apple really put a lot of muscle behind HomeKit. It may happen of course, but so far I've not seen it.

I think eventually HomeKit will become a common system you'll find everywhere (high end). They're looking at getting builders to start installing it in new build houses which is a clever idea.. but I doubt we'll ever have a defacto HA standard. That said I doubt it'll ever have the flexibility of systems like indigo.. so I'm hoping that systems like homebridge will continue to work so we can get the best of both worlds.

And I'd love to see much more deep rooted support in iOS and macOS.. e.g. Telling Siri to wake me at 7am and she'd slowly start brightening my bedside light at 6:50am.


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[jay (support)]

I think eventually HomeKit will become a common system you'll find everywhere (high end). They're looking at getting builders to start installing it in new build houses which is a clever idea..

That's been tried OVER and OVER throughout the years. I don't see it happening in any widespread fashion for many more years (if ever). I also don't think HK will ever be a high-end system - Apple doesn't do high-end systems (even their "high end" software is pretty much being abandoned).

When i say high end I more meant expensive