With iOS 13.0, we didn’t really see a lot of major changes to Apple’s Home app and we definitely didn’t get any of the big WWDC announcements like secure video or HomeKit router.  support.  In an interesting move, Apple introduced beta versions of 13.1 before 13.0 was even available to the public and it’s official release came only a few days after the launch of the  thirteenth iteration of the mobile operating system.  In this article, we go through the changes to Apple’s Home app in iOS 13.1

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“People” Settings in Home

In iOS 13.0, we saw a few different changes to “Settings” in the Home tab, but in 13.1, we see the addition of a couple of new controls for the people in our HomeKit home.  By toggling.   “Show me on Apple TV”, we can show our rpfile on the selected Apple TV.  While this would be a great option to have say in the Remote or Shortcuts app, I’m not sure how much use I’ll get out of it here in HomeKit.

Although it didn’t make the final version of iOS 13.1, early betas hinted at the introduction of HomeKit Secure Video.  We can safely assume that in a future version of iOS 13 we will have the ability to indicate an invitee’s level of access to any HomeKit cameras we may have.  Choosing between “No Access”, “Stream Only”, and “Stream & Video Recordings” we should have more granular control of who can do what with HomeKit video.  It’s hard to say when Secure Video will go live, but its functionality has been seen in the wild via an Apple Store demo and you can bet we’ll be covering it.

New Icons

First discovered in a macOS Catalina beta and noted by HomeKit Hero, we finally, finally have a larger library of icons to assign to accessories, most notably to lighting.  The greatest advantage of this is that we can more quickly identify which light is which in a given room.  In addition to a host of new icons for lighting, we also got a larger library of glyphs for different outlet types, among other updates.  Sadly, we didn’t see any new icons for scenes…and speaking of scenes.

Scenes

A pretty useful addition to an accessory’s settings in iOS 13.1 is an option to see all of the scenes that the accessory plays in.  Personally, I’ve found this useful for decluttering my vast library of HomeKit scenes.  If an accessory is not playing a role in a Scene, and as we’ve seen when we setup a new accessory, the Home app will give us some suggestions on Scenes it thinks suit the accessory.  You may think this last part is small, but this is a step in the direction of a HomeKit home that can analyze our actions and make decisions without us having to setup a scene or automation, but rather just confirm, or deny, that it is in fact what we want to happen.  

Shortcuts

Have you ever wanted your favorite news program to start playing while your coffee brews and your lights turn on to an energizing temperature?  Well with Shortcuts integration, automations are more powerful than ever.  By selecting “Convert to Shortcut” from the “Select Accessories and Scenes…” option from our existing HomeKit automation, we can now take full advantage of all that the Shortcuts app has to offer in an automation.  This seems like an odd place to put such a control, but at least we have it  It is worth noting that HomeKit automations which trigger scenes and not individual accessories cannot be converted to a Shortcut as the scene must be built as an action in Shortcuts.  We’ll be diving further into the relationship between HomeKit and Shortcuts in later posts.

Final Thought

The software launch cycle this go ‘round is strange.  We usually see new software released for all devices and platforms within a few days of each other and this was not the case.  In fact, as of the writing of this article, audioOS or iOS for HomePod or whatever it’s called is still on 12.4.  As is always the case, I would much rather wait a little while for features to incubate rather than get a rollout of something that’s buggy and half-baked.  iOS 13 still has a long way to go in terms of HomeKit with the launch of Secure Video and support for routers and who knows what other surprises we might see.  In either case, myHomeKithome will be here to break it all down for you.

What features are your favorites and which do you think Apple missed out on in this latest update?  Which features in iOS 13.1 did I miss.  The comment section awaits as does Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with daily updates on HomeKit deals, news, and commentaries so follow us @myhomekithome. 

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Links & Resources

HomeKit Hero’s Home app Icon Rundown: https://bit.ly/2Nier2J

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