Sometimes Siri isn’t around to help you manage your smart home. The new Elgato Eve Button puts your HomeKit-enabled devices and scenes at your fingertips when you don’t have your smartphone at the ready.
The new HomeKit controller also means guests or kids can easily turn on the lights, lock the doors or whatever else needs doing — all with a quick press on the Eve Button.
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Elgato’s elegant HomeKit accessories set a high bar when it comes to good looks and flawless functionality. Easy to set up and delightful to look at, the Eve line never fails to impress us. (And we’re total HomeKit fanatics here at Cult of Mac.)
Elgato Eve Button, a gorgeous HomeKit controller
The Eve Button, announced this week as CES 2018 gets underway, looks like a solid addition to Elgato’s growing line of HomeKit devices. The anodized aluminum housing and sleek design would look right at home on Jony Ive’s coffee table.
The device lets you activate up to three HomeKit scenes using a single, double or long press. If it’s like other Elgato devices, it will be dead-simple to set up and totally reliable. You don’t need an additional hub or any sort of cloud service to get it up and running. You simply activate it using Apple’s Home app to instantly add a remote control for your HomeKit devices.
“There are situations when you don’t have access to Siri or an app, and where no sensor is available to trigger the scene,” said Adam Steinberg, Elgato’s vice president of customer experience. “That’s where Eve Button comes in, ensuring that you’re always in control. Eve Button looks gorgeous, it is intuitive, and it’s always within reach.”
The HomeKit controller runs on a replaceable CR2032 battery and measures 2.1 inches by 2.1 inches by 0.5 inches.
The Eve Button, which lists for $49.95, is available today from Amazon and direct from Elgato. The company says it should be in Apple stores later this month.
Buy from: Amazon
Eve Room gets an upgrade
Photo: Elgato
Another Elgato HomeKit device, the Eve Room, is getting an upgrade. The tiny sensor, which packs the same design as the rest of the products in the Eve line, lets you keep tabs on temperature, humidity and air quality (by measuring volatile organic compounds).
The second-gen Eve Room packs the latest sensor technology from Swiss manufacturer Sensirion. It improves on the original Eve Room with an e-ink display and a built-in battery that can be charged via any USB power source.
Like the rest of the Eve line, the Room should be easy to set up and work seamlessly with your existing HomeKit setup right out of the box. The new Eve Room will list for $99.95 when it becomes available in March 2018.
