The Gardena small garden watering system promised HomeKit compatibility in the first quarter of the year, and has now made good on that promise …
Macerkopf says that it has been beta-testing HomeKit support since the end of last year.
As a beta tester, we have been using HomeKit for Gardena Smart System since the end of last year. Since then, the system has been running very reliably. HomeKit is now available to all Gardena Smart Home users. Your Gardena Smart System Gateway should have already updated automatically. If this is not the case, then you have to manually trigger the update via the Gardena Smart System App. The individual components (sockets, sensors, etc.) must be manually updated with a new HomeKit firmware. This is also done via the app.
Four products get the update:
- Smart Water Control
- Smart sensor
- Smart Irrigation Control
- Smart Power external socket
In addition to Siri control, HomeKit support means that you can now have integrated scenes, like switching on external lighting and automatically watering the garden at sunset.
Gardena’s smart watering devices are available on Amazon. The system is designed to minimize water usage as well as keep your garden healthy.
Apple recently announced that some smart TVs are also getting HomeKit support, with a developer previewing what will be possible.
You can tap on the tile to turn it on or off and access the Details menu to change input.
Interestingly, you can also rename the inputs — so HDMI 1 could be labelled as ‘Cable’ or ‘Xbox’ instead. Right now, you can only use Siri voice commands to turn the TV on or off. Hopefully, in a future beta seed you can change inputs with your voice too, using those custom names you picked […]
Finally, we get confirmation that Smart TVs will be able to participate in HomeKit automations. You will be able to make a nighttime movie scene that dims the lights, turns on the TV and switches input all at once.
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