CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ios8hardwarehomekit
vinoth kannan
vinoth kannan

Reputation: 173

Third party devices with ios8 HomeKit Support?

I already have an home automation ios app. I can able to control devices that are configured in my home. I can able to access my device via local and remote network.

I just read apple's new ios8 HomeKit support. I want to integrate HomeKit compatibility into my app.I heard HAP(Home Accessory protocol) supported devices can only able to communicate with HomeKit Framework. Also apple said there is a bridge for third party devices to communicate with HomeKit. There is not much information about hardware protocols or procedures, how to use bridge between third party device and HomeKit ?

Is my HomeKit bridge is a real hardware?

Also i have doubts on communicating with configured accessories. Because apple HomeKit Framework have commands like "startExecutingActionSet" to perform one or multiple task , but how this commands works with our Existing commands protocols defined in ios app.

I am new to hardware engineering . So please give me a simple example of communication between apple's homekit via bridge with my Hardware device.

Thanks in advance...

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2027

Answers (1)

Craig
Craig

Reputation: 8294

A HomeKit bridge is a piece of hardware that receives HK style commands from an iDevice and translated them into the specific protocol for the target devices in your home. Phillips Hue have one of these. Apple have a protocol that the hardware manufacturers need to conform to and you need to be signed up to their MFi program to get that protocol. However someone seems to have reverse engineered the specs and you can use their code to write your own software bridge. That's what I'm doing.

In HomeKit you do not talk directly to the devices. That's pretty much the main point of HomeKit. So that each developer doesn't need to know each device's specific protocol you just trigger iOS to do the talking for a predefined action. I believe you can also add triggers and action sets by building up a group of actions that you want to happen and firing of the event. E.g. Turn off all accessories in the garage when I go inside. You don't need to know how to turn off each one, you just tell iOS to run the Off command on each device and it knows the rest. Or at least it does for the ones that have signed up to the MFi program and can listen to HomeKit commands.

Upvotes: 3

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