WWDC22: Apple Debuts All-New Home App

At the WWDC22 event today, Apple announced an all-new Home app for its HomeKit smart home platform with a completely new design. The all-new Home app will be arriving with the latest Apple operating system –the iOS 16 scheduled to debut later in the year. Apple has confirmed that the new app was rebuilt from the ground, giving it more efficient and reliable abilities for home devices with multiple accessories.

Navigation within the all-new Home app has also been redesigned, the new designs make it a whole lot easier for users to find, organize, and control devices. Also included are an all-new Categories section for climate, lights, speakers and TVs, water (sprinklers and faucets), and security, users can access all those devices in one place. Now more than ever it’s simpler to turn off all the lights or lock all the doors in one place, even though they are located in different rooms.

The all-new Home app makes it possible to view the entire home in the Home tab, where Rooms now joins your Favorites on the main screen. A new multi-camera view will show four security cameras on the main Home tab, with more available as you scroll sideways. This horizontal action makes it easier for users to look through to get what they want rather than having to scroll through a number of accessories and multiple camera views.

Accessory tiles introduce a revamped redesign that uses shape and colour to tell the status of each device and can be controlled directly through the icon, with detailed control gained by tapping the accessory name. There are new HomeKit lock screen widgets too, guaranteed to be helpful in getting accessories quicker and faster as well as seeing the status of devices.

During the keynote, Apple gave a shout out to Matter, the new smart home connectivity standard Matter. The matter is one that enables all devices to work together across platforms. The matter is set for launch later in the year 2022, presumably at the same time iOS 16 will likely drop. Apple said the new OS will bring support for the standard to the Home app. A representative of Apple, Corey Wang said that Apple contributed HomeKit as the “foundation of this new standard” and that Matter supports some of HomeKit’s core principles. This will include the highest levels of security and privacy. Wang also hinted at how Matter intends to help HomeKit users integrate more device categories into their smart homes, allowing them to choose from more compatible smart home accessories and control them from the redesigned Home app with the ability to use Siri. However to date, HomeKit has missed a number of categories in the smart home list, this includes robot vacuums and pet feeders

Starting today, Apple’s iOS 16 will be available to developers as a preview, while public beta testing commences next month, the full release will be later in the fall.  iPhone 8 and later, the iPad (5th generation and later), iPad mini (5th generation and later), iPad Air (3rd generation and later), and all iPad Pro models are the devices the operating system will be only be supporting.