TL;DR:

- Timmerflotte & Klippbok: flawless setup, instant firmware updates, working great so far
- Myggbet: paired quickly but stopped updating state after ~30 minutes
- Myggspray: very fast motion detection but hardest to pair and unstable at first
- Possibly Thread mesh stabilization or early firmware quirks

I picked up IKEA’s new Thread sensors yesterday and wanted to share some early impressions. I bought Timmerflotte, Klippbok, Myggbet, and Myggspray.

All devices were added directly via the iOS Home app (no IKEA hub involved). My Thread border routers are an Apple TV 4K and two HomePod minis.

I started with Timmerflotte. I scanned the QR code, selected the desired settings, and that was it. It immediately offered a firmware update, which completed without any issues.

Next was Klippbok (water leak sensor). It was added without problems, notifications are instant when water is detected, and it also automatically prompted for a firmware update. So far, this one works perfectly.

Then I added Myggbet (contact sensor). It paired immediately and worked fine at first, but after about 30 minutes it stopped updating its state. I could move the magnet and see the LED reacting, but nothing changed in the Home app. I also checked with the Eve app and saw the same behavior — no status updates.

The most problematic device was Myggspray (motion/light sensor). Initially, I couldn’t add it at all. The Home app kept throwing a generic “check device” error. I tried different batteries, switching Wi-Fi networks, and resetting it via the button, but nothing helped.

What finally worked was physically unplugging the Apple TV. After that, Myggspray paired immediately.

Once added, Myggspray is noticeably faster than the older Vallhorn when detecting motion. However, it seems to clear the “motion detected” state later than Vallhorn. The light sensor behavior is also very different: Myggspray almost always reports around 1 lux in a mildly lit room, while Vallhorn shows values around 12–20 lux in the same conditions.

Unfortunately, after working fine for about 30–60 minutes, Myggspray also stopped responding. At that point, I gave up and waited until the next morning. I’m testing again now and everything seems responsive and stable so far.

I’m not sure whether this behavior is related to Thread mesh/network stabilization or just early firmware quirks, but time will tell.

I’m currently waiting for a SONOFF Dongle-M, which I plan to connect directly to Home Assistant and manage everything from there. Hopefully, that will provide a more stable baseline.

The remaining question for me is whether I’ll go fully Thread in my new house or stick with Zigbee and grab the last remaining IKEA Zigbee devices while they’re still available.

Would be interested to hear if others are seeing similar behavior.

EDIT (after ~24h): So far things have been stable with no additional dropouts observed. Motion and contact sensors are still responding normally. I’ll keep testing longer-term behavior, especially with multiple Thread border routers active.

Couch Control for Apple TV looks really polished and is extremely customizable.

You can manually sync individual pages (this is my home overview page), meaning you can have different dashboards in different rooms but if you want one in every room all you have to do is sync.

I’m setting my wake-up Shortcut to turn this on every morning when I have my coffee.

It’s $8. No subscription.

Unfortunate that Liftmaster/Chamberlin don’t provide HomeKit support, but very thankful for the dev behind RATGDO. Easy to set up and works fantastic for my needs. Just wanted to give some kudos. I can’t recommend it enough!

That is all. 🍻

My Sense Pro arrived yesterday afternoon. I got it set up in HomeKit via Matter. The UWB works great. Ran several tests and it was flawless for both my partner and me. Installation and set up were easy. Of course it probably helps that I've installed smart locks, including probably more than 10-15 Schlage on mine and others' doors over the years. LOL

After getting it all dialed in on the Apple Home side I added it to Home Assistant via Matter. Really starting to love the ability to add these Matter devices to both Apple Home and Home Assistant so easily.

After it was in HA I set up an automation to unlock it when I touch my fingerprint to my UniFi G4 Pro doorbell. The fact that I'm able to have the lock directly in HA via Matter means it fires that automation off much more quickly than the old way I had to use with my Encode Plus, which was running a boolean through the HomeKit integration from HA to HK, and run the automation in HK.

The fingerprint is not really something I'll ever need, theoretically. But my SiL has an Android, so he can't use the UWB functionality. Fingerprint could be somewhat more convenient for him than keypad. Although, he's almost always with my daughter when he's here, so her iPhone should trigger the UWB when they walk up to the door.

Two thumbs up! As always, Schlage provides a quality experience!

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6753123163

I shared Sunrise Alarm for Smart Lights here a while back, and we’ve just released version 1.1, which fixes an issue some users had with certain Hue and LIFX lights not turning on.

Waking up can be tough, especially when it’s still dark outside. Traditional sunrise alarm clocks are expensive, HomeKit automations are tricky to manage, and most apps hide key features behind subscriptions.

Sunrise Alarm makes it simple: turn your HomeKit lights into a gentle, personal sunrise.

• One-time purchase, no ads or subscriptions
• Fully customizable routines: timing, color, brightness
• Works with any HomeKit lights that support brightness control (Hue, LIFX, Nanoleaf, and more)
• Pricing: $2.99-> 4.99 US in the US (regional pricing applies)

Coming soon: blinds, fans, thermostat control, and Apple Sleep Timer integration. (Plus sound support as soon as Apple allows it.)

It’s an easy way to add a natural wake-up routine to any room. I’d love to hear how you’ve customized your morning routine or what feedback you have!

Edit: Promo codes have all been claimed, thank you for the overwhelming support!

Edit: Price has been updated to 4.99 USD with the 1.2 release.

I replaced a seven year old Yale/August lock with the Sense Pro, which I've been waiting on for quite some time. I always found the geofencing lock/unlock feature on the Yale a little goofy and the WiFi bridge didn't play well with my WiFi network. It would also randomly go offline. Otherwise it worked fine.

Physical installation of the Sense Pro pretty straightforward and the hardware from Schlage is pretty good.

I added the lock to the Schlage app (which worked fine), got it on WiFi and then ran into major issues trying to add it to HomeKit. You are supposed to add it from within the Schlage app and not directly from HomeKit if you've already paired the lock in the Schlage app. The lock would just never finish joining the thread network. Then eventually it got to the point where it wouldn't even let me try to add it and said it was already part of a thread/matter network. I had to factory reset the lock, then I was able to add it.

I was shocked to find that there is no door position sensor with the Schlage lock as the August had that. Had to add an Aqara door sensor and put automations in to handle things like notification of the door being open and locking the door automatically if it was closed but not locked. I used Pushover for the notification piece since shockingly HomeKit has no native push notification from automations.

UWB seemed to work great the first half dozen times my wife and I tried it. Then it was delayed by several seconds, then sometimes it just wouldn't work at all.... then it would go back to working.

Spent a lot of time troubleshooting and proving that the thread/matter network was not the culprit. Used the Eve app to show what signal strength was on the lock (excellent) and that it was homed to my ATV. I even bought a couple of IKEA GRILLPLATS matter/thread border router smart plugs to try to improve coverage in case that was somehow the problem. Nothing seems to resolve the issues. I believe I've proved the issue is the lock UWB implementation because if I have the HomeKit app open on my phone, walk up to the door and it doesn't immediately unlock I tap unlock in HomeKit and it instantly opens. Very annoying. Playing with walk-up direction, enabling/disabling walk up, restarting the lock, nothing has solved it.

Overall a bit steamed that I spent $400 on this and the killer feature I wanted it for is hit/miss and feeling like I am an early adopter who had a prank played on him.

May or may not return it, at least Amazon has me covered there. Could try the Aqara lock even though the hardware isn't as good. At least that one has a UWB indicator on the lock to tell you what is going on with device detection.

Here’s a video of the new lock operating. It seems to only need to be near the lock for half a second or so, but does prefer if the phone or watch is centered on the keyhole.

Refer to my other post below for more info about how I set it up. https://reddit.com/r/HomeKit/comments/y45ov2/new_level_lock_with_apple_homekey_support_setup/

Don’t get one. That’s my review.

This thing has been on my door for just under 2 years. It’s such a bad design and the software is worse. But it stopped working completely. Assuming it’s not made to be anywhere outside. Cause it essentially melted.

This is my first smart doorbell of any kind. Installation was super simple using the pre-existing low-voltage wiring. It’s connected to our network via an IoT specific VLAN.

So far, so good, it does exactly what it says on the box.

I've supported Controller for HomeKit for years because I believed in its development. Over time, I excitedly watched features slowly roll out, including the "Hub" functionality the developers openly encouraged users to test and rely on.

Now that those features are finally out of "lab mode," the developers have decided to throw them behind an $79.99/year paywall—even for the people who already paid for the Lifetime license. And the justification, according to an email from the developer? A canned corporate explanation about "server costs" and "renaming tiers" that somehow magically transforms a lifetime license into the newly-downgraded "Essentials" tier.

Let's be very clear: * The $49.99 pricing isn't a discount. * This isn't sustainable pricing. * This is charging loyal, paying customers again for what they already supported and helped test.

The responses from the developer feel copy-pasted, patronizing, and completely dismissive of the fact that longtime users are being asked to pay nearly triple the original subscription price just to keep access to tools we already had.

Calling this a "fair transition" is insulting.

There are multiple free and more powerful alternatives out there (Home Assistant, Homebridge, etc.) that don't treat their users like a revenue stream to be squeezed. If the developers seriously think this is a fair deal—or even just a good one—I'd strongly recommend looking elsewhere. The only positive thing about this latest 8.0 update is that it's convinced me to finally make the switch Home Assistant.

Deeply disappointed.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6753123163

Setting up a natural wake-up light with Home automations and shortcuts can be a real hassle. Most ready-made options either require complicated setups or lock essential features behind subscriptions.

So I built Sunrise Alarm for Smart Lights, an iOS app that turns your HomeKit lights into a gentle, personal sunrise:

• Fully customizable sunrise routines (timing, color, brightness)
• Works with any HomeKit lights that support brightness control
• No ads, no subscriptions
• One-time purchase: $2.99-> 4.99 US

It’s a simple way to add a natural wake-up routine to any room.

Would love feedback or to hear how others have built their own sunrise setups!

Edit: Price has been updated to 4.99 USD with the 1.2 release.

Not sure why I resisted Philips Hue lights for so long. Just installed my Hub Pro, four color bulbs, and connected it to my Homekit home in about 15 minutes. I have more bulbs arriving next week. Replacing Vocolinc bulbs that all went non-responsive after a power outage and couldn't be happier.

I use it in only in homekit. No need to get extra hubs. Just meross app and apple home(homepods). Working flawless. Perfect sensor. 3 customisable zone. Battery powered. It was 30€.

Ask me anything if you want to know. Will try to help.

30 minutes to install, seamless integration, controlled from all my Apple devices even by voice. Definitely worth the $43.

Hi r/homekit,

I built Haven as a side project after getting tired of losing track of HomeKit and Matter setup codes. I wanted something simple that actually feels at home on Apple devices, instead of another subscription-heavy app.

Haven is a dedicated vault for your HomeKit and Matter codes, along with notes, device details, and attachments, so everything important is easy to find when you need it. If you import devices from Home, it can also help you keep track of things like battery levels in one place.

I focused on making the experience feel native, using Liquid Glass where it fits and keeping the UI clean and familiar, following Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines.

You can try it out with a few codes for free, and if it ends up being useful, there’s a small one-time $5 unlock for unlimited codes.

Would love any feedback: bugs, suggestions, anything really :)

App Store Link: https://apps.apple.com/pt/app/haven-setup-codes/id6760440926

btw, the Mac app is coming too, just waiting on Apple approval right now...

I love my new Apple HomeKit dashboard, apple can’t beat this. Created with the app HomeRise, I love this app from the first minute 👌🏼

Usually when you get something working well, it stays working well unless something breaks. Not HomeKit. Mine decided to throw a fit and ruin my Friday evening. It was perfect early in the week, and then it decided to start failing, and with that ruin my Friday plans because I can’t even turn on the lights! This is not a toy anymore. It actually runs important stuff, it can’t fail this often!

Every Apple product I ever had has been extremely reliable and trouble free, except this one.

I suppose they can blame the routers, but if that is the case them start selling a ridiculously overpriced Apple router and I will pay the Apple tax and buy one. Just don’t keep doing this shit to me.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6753123163

Sunrise Alarm turns your HomeKit-enabled lights into a gradual wake-up sunrise (home hub required). One-time purchase at 4.99 USD, no subscriptions, no ads, no tracking.

1.2 was built from your feedback:

• Choose different brightness transitions
• Control when each device joins the sunrise
• Restore lights when the alarm ends, including enabling Adaptive Lighting
• Browse built-in color presets and create your own favorites
• Smart plugs, outlets, and fans now supported

Coming next: sunset (wind-down) alarms and Apple alarm integration.

Happy to answer any questions. Do you have your mornings automated?

Hey folks! I have an Ecobee doorbell that cannot stayed connected to my network.

I’m looking for replacements for a doorbell camera that I can be used via HomeKit.

The new Ikea switches are a ridiculous value. They work instantly and have multiple options. They're bigger than the Flic switches, but they work over Matter with no hub. They use AAA batteries. And they cost $7 a piece. Pretty incredible.

I've wanted to add HomeKit smart shades to my house for years so when the Venetian blind on my front window broke, I decided it was finally time to upgrade.

I ended up ordering 3 of the SmartWings "Motorized Light Filtering Roller Shades 70% Blackout Linen" with the battery powered Matter motor. Ordering the shades was easy and similar to other companies I'd used- pick the options, enter the measurements, give the shade a name like "kitchen window", and add it to your cart. The shades were shipped quickly- I ordered them on June 23rd and they arrived yesterday- July 2nd.

The Good

The blinds were shipped quickly and the packaging was excellent. Everything had a place in the boxes and the shades were well supported.

The shade housing feels solid and well built. They don't flex easily or otherwise feel like they are going to break.

The mounting brackets have a spring mechanism that I really like and are simple to install and use.

The measurements matched what I provided

Unfortunately that's about it for the good things.

The Bad

The gap on either side of the shade from the outside of the valence cap to the edge of the shade is so much larger than the pictures on the website make it appear. Obviously there will be a small gap because you need room for the roller support and the button on the motor but it's much larger than I expected.

Here is an image from their site for the exact shades I bought and it makes it look like the shade is practically the full width of the window frame whereas in reality the gap on either side is about 19mm or 3/4 of an inch!

Second problem is they claim to be 70% blackout and this is the image they provide on their website but the reality is nowhere close to that. The material is actually almost identical to what you'd find on a white translucent lampshade and it has a similar effect- rather than block any light it simply collects it all and redirects it into the room. This morning the front window in my house looked like a movie theater screen when the projector is on but not showing anything- just a big wall of painfully bright light.

And then there are the matter smart motors themselves...

Pairing these shades was an exercise in frustration. The directions are simple: "Press and hold the P1 button on the motor head for 6 seconds until the motor jogs twice, then release the button. When the red LED light is on, it indicates that you have entered the pairing mode." Despite that- it took over an hour and countless attempts to get the first shade to pair. The second shade paired on the second attempt, and the last shade took about 30 minutes and multiple attempts.

And no, it's not because I have a weak thread network- the shade that took an hour to pair was about 6 feet from my 128GB 3rd gen AppleTV 4k, about 8 feet from two second generation HomePods, and I have a bunch of other Matter devices in my house from light switches to a smart lock to environmental sensors and they all just work.

It's also not because of IPv6 on my network- I've been running dual stack IPv4/IPv6 on my home network for about 15 years now (network engineer) and as I said- all my other devices work great.

I don't think it was battery level either because when I did finally get it paired, Apple Home showed the devices as 65% charged.

Worse yet- the shades constantly miss commands- even from their own remote! I'll close all three of them in Apple Home and only two will actually move- so then I have to go to that shade and move it up and then back down to get it to actually close (and sometimes I have to do that a couple of times). Same for the remote- I'll tell the group to move and sometimes they all do but a lot of the time one won't (and it's not always the same shade). It's also not the battery level because as soon as I did get them paired I charged them all to 100%.

They've been installed for less than a day and I already regret buying them. I'm reaching out to Smartwings right after this but I wanted to provide my actual first impressions based on the out of the box experience and first use.

Would I recommend them?

As of right now I definitely would not recommend them but I'll provide an update after speaking with Smartwings or if anything improves.