Honeywell’s unusually smart home thermostat finally gets HomeKit support

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The Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat now works with HomeKit and Siri.
The Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat now works with HomeKit and Siri.
Photo: Residio

After a couple of years of promises, one of the first consumer smart thermostats to support remote temperature and humidity sensors, the Honeywell Home T9, finally features support for Apple HomeKit and Siri voice control.

Ask Siri to control the Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat

Resideo, owner of the Honeywell Home brand, promised to make the T9 HomeKit-compatible about two years ago. It already offers support for Apple’s smart home system in its T5 thermostat, also called the Lyric T5. But that device doesn’t work with external sensors.

Adding HomeKit compatibility to the T9 is an important step. The thermostat’s remote sensors help ensure comfortable conditions in various rooms — not just in the immediate vicinity of the thermostat.

And the sensors have a good reputation not only for accurate temperature readings, but also for humidity measurements. Remote sensors from other makers, like Nest and ecobee, don’t measure humidity.

The sensors also sense motion and presence and adjust the system to focus on rooms where it detects people.

With HomeKit support, users can now control their Honeywell Home T9 thermostat using the Siri voice-activated assistant or Apple’s Home app. They should be able to use automations to adjust conditions.

The thermostat includes no built-in voice assistant, so users need to bring up Siri using a HomePod Mini, iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch.

The upcoming Matter standard

When the new Matter standard launches in 2022, Residio’s current move to add HomeKit support might not be so important. The company sits on the Connectivity Standards Alliance board, helping to oversee the rollout of Matter.

The first Matter specification includes smart thermostats, so the Honeywell Home T9 probably would have supported the standard soon anyway, making the thermostat compatible with any smart home system.

But for those with T9 thermostats — and HomeKit folks folks who might like them — having the compatibility sooner than later is great, as winter approaches.

The Honeywell Home T9 Smart Thermostat comes with one sensor and supports up to 20.

Price: $199

Where to buy: Residio

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