Eufy has made a brief post explaining the HomeKit delay with the affordable Indoor Cam it launched back in April.
The company promised at the time that it would get HomeKit support, but this has not yet happened. The post says there will be a further delay, but for a very good reason …
The camera will not only get basic HomeKit support, but will also offer HomeKit Secure Video.
We just wanted to clear a few things up with regard to the issue of HomeKit compatibility. Firstly, we want to apologize for the delay which you are experiencing. We understand your frustration and appreciate your patience.
Our development team wants to provide you all with the best possible HomeKit experience and in order to achieve this, we decided to implement the HomeKit Secure Video function. This function will allow users to store videos to iCloud. The application of this function requires additional certification which unfortunately is the result of the delay. :sob:
The full HomeKit experience will officially be available to you before mid-July.
As we’ve explained in the past, there’s a somewhat confusing state of affairs when it comes to HomeKit cameras. Basic support means that you can access cameras via Siri, and have things like motion-sensing trigger automations, but there is also a separate feature called HomeKit Secure Video (HSV).
HomeKit Secure Video is designed to address the main security weakness with most of today’s smarter cameras. In order to do things like detect people and recognize faces, most cameras upload your video stream to the cloud and carry out the analysis there. That means that unencrypted video is stored on someone else’s server, representing a tasty target for hackers.
With HSV, all of the people, animal, and vehicle detection is performed locally, on your own iPad, HomePod, or Apple TV, and only encrypted video is sent to Apple’s cloud servers.
Usually, when a manufacturer just says HomeKit without mentioning HSV, it indicates the camera offers only the basic level of support. But in this case, the Indoor Cam is now set to get HSV support too.
If you don’t want to wait until mid-July, you can join parent company Anker’s beta program to get access around the end of this month.
Eufy offers a wide variety of smart home products, including a range of cameras. HomeKit delay is unfortunately not unusual when it comes to smart home products, many of them experiencing lengthy delays before they launch, or before HomeKit support is added via a firmware update some time after launch.
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