There are different levels of a smart home in our opinion. On one hand, you can have a home full of smart devices that you can control with an app on your phone or tablet, or a hub like the Amazon Echo Hub or Google Nest Hub Max.
On the other hand however, you can have a home run by automations, where everything is done for you based on parameters you set. For example, your lights turn off at 10pm every night without any input from you, or the heating turns up when a room is detected as too cold.
Automations can be set via various smart home platforms, whether you’re using Amazon Alexa, Google Home or Apple Home. We’re talking about Apple Home specifically here though. Here’s how to setup temperature and humidity automations in Apple Home and what you will need to do it.
What you need
In brief, here is what you will need in order to create temperature and humidity automations with the Apple Home app:
- A HomeKit compatible temperature and/or humidity sensor
- An Apple Home hub
- HomeKit compatible devices connected to your Home app
Sounds reasonably doable, right? There is something that makes this even simpler however, and that’s if you have a HomePod or HomePod mini. While an Apple TV 4K (2021) or newer can also act as an Apple Home smart home hub, the HomePod or HomePod mini speakers are not just home hubs, but they have temperature and humidity sensors built in too.
You will still need HomeKit compatible devices within the Home app to do something with the automation though. The HomePods will detect a rise and fall in temperature and humidity but for that to lead to something, you will need other devices, such as Philips Hue lights or a HomeKit compatible smart thermostat.
How to set up temperature and humidity automations in Apple Home
Stay with us, this how to is a little longer than the average but once it’s set up, it will work without you having to do anything else.
1. Open the Apple Home app and tap on the Automation tab at the bottom of your screen.
2. Tap on the ‘+’ in the top right corner and select ‘Add Automation‘.
3. Select ‘A Sensor Detects Something‘.
4. You’ll then need to choose the temperature and/or humidity sensor for the device you want to use to measure temperature and/or humidity in your home.
5. Tap Next and you’re onto the next part of the automation process.
6. The next step is to add a trigger. Select Rises Above or Falls Below for temperature and/or humidity and when a particular temperature value or humidity percentage is met, this will then start the next part of the automation.
7. It might also be worth selecting a time of day for your automation as you may want the automation to run during the day if the temperature falls below a certain value for example, but perhaps you’re not fussed at night. To do this, tap on Time and select your preference.
8. As with Time parameters, you can also select People. This is for if you only want the automation to run when you are at home â or not at home. Tap Next once you have selected your preferences.
9. You’ll then need to select an action to happen once your automation is triggered. Unfortunately, this can only be turning up or down the temperature if you have a HomeKit compatible thermostat. Otherwise, you can do things like turn a HomeKit compatible light blue when the room is too cold, or red if it’s heating up.
10. You can also select Convert To Shortcut at the bottom of the available devices, where it is possible to set a Shortcut to a limited selection of apps and commands. It’s important to note that you don’t get full access to the Siri Shortcuts app from here, which is a shame as if you did, you could connect third party smart thermostats.
11. Once you have selected your action, tap Done in the top right corner. Your Automation will appear in the Automation section of the Home app so you can edit it whenever you like.
What else is worth knowing?
It’s important to note that setting up automations in Apple Home really is reliant on other HomeKit compatible devices. If you have a HomeKit compatible thermostat for example, you can create an automation that will see your thermostat automatically increase the temperature when your HomePod â or other temperature sensor â detects the temperature has fallen below your desired value.
HomeKit compatible blinds would allow you to drop the blinds automatically when a room is getting too hot for example, while a HomeKit compatible plug would enable you to create an automation to turn on a dehumidifier that was plugged into it if the humidity increased passed your threshold.
The possibilities are effectively endless, but only if you have the right smart home devices within your Apple Home setup.
