Will the Apple TV become a hub for controlling your smart home in the near future? Signs are pointing to yes.
Apple is quietly testing HomeKit support for its TV set-top box with developers. The functionality can turn an Apple TV into an always-conntected bridge device for communicating between hardware peripherals that support Apple’s HomeKit framework.
The feature was first reported last month and showed up again in this week’s latest Apple TV beta, which “includes support for Family Sharing and can be used for testing AirPlay and HomeKit with your iOS apps.”
What does that entail, exactly? AppleInsider points to a discussion on Apple’s internal developer forums. A post from August explains that “currently Apple TV is the only device from Apple that can act as HomeKit remote access relay.”
Based on what developers have found, the integration works like this: Once logged into an iCloud account on the Apple TV, any other iOS device on the same account will show a prompt upon opening a HomeKit-compatible app. The prompt asks the user if they want to use the Apple TV to control their home remotely.
After the user says yes, iOS 8 syncs paired accessory tokens to Apple TV via the iCloud Keychain. From then on, the Apple TV can be used to remotely control any HomeKit device on the same WiFi network.
So if you leave your house and forget to turn off your Phillips Hue lights, you could connect to your Apple TV via iCloud over cellular on your iPhone and turn them off. One could also imagine a world in which the Apple TV knows to dim the lights whenever Netflix starts playing, turn down the thermostat when your iPhone leaves the Wi-Fi network, etc.
Exactly how the Apple TV and HomeKit will work together is still up in the air, as the integration is still in private beta. Interesting use cases will rely on third-party accessory makers just as much as Apple.
