by Jason Snell

HomeView is simple, and that’s a good thing

The best writer on the smart home beat today is The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, who I think has the best take on the HomeView I’ve seen so far:

HomeView’s simplicity may put off hardcore home automation enthusiasts, but I’d argue it’s perfect for their long-suffering spouses. I’ve tried every version of physical smart home control interface in my home, and you know who hasn’t used any of them? My family.

Because my family all have iPhones, and because the HomeView will always be there and will feel familiar, I can see them actually using it. That means I could set up a full Home Assistant instance and run a detailed dashboard on a tablet in my office, then feed the scenes and devices into Apple Home so my husband and daughter can just tap to control them on a HomeView in the kitchen.

HomeView may not be the smart home computer I want Apple to make, but it is the smart home device Apple needed to make.

My own thermostat, which came with my HVAC system, is a piece of junk, and I can’t replace it because it is incompatible with third-party thermostats. But I can envision putting a HomeView on the wall and making that the primary interface for it and every other smart home device in my house.