HomeKit Weekly is a series focused on smart home accessories, automation tips and tricks, and everything to do with Apple’s smart home framework.
Cost
Compatibility
A good example here is that Ring offers such products as floodlights with cameras built in and video door bells. On the other hand, there are very few doorbells that work with HomeKit available to purchase, and just one of them works with HomeKit Secure Video. abode is launching a camera this year that will work with HomeKit and double as a doorbell.
While HomeKit is no slouch when it comes to supported devices, Alexa is at the top of the list.
Reliability
Reliability is something that’s going to be subjective. As with anything Wi-Fi driven, your device makeup, the layout of your home, and placement of devices can determine how reliable they are. I’ve got twenty-five devices that would be considered “smart home” products and almost all of them support HomeKit and Alexa. I’ve got them configured with various automations and room layouts, and I’ve found HomeKit to be head and shoulders above Alexa when it comes to reliability. I’ve found that devices that are still working with HomeKit will be “unresponsive” with Alexa. Sometimes rebooting the device will fix it, but other times I’ll have to completely remove it and re-add it via the Alexa app.
While Siri gets a bad reputation in a lot of areas, I’ve found that HomeKit is an area where it excels. In my experience, Siri on iPhone and HomePod has been almost 100% reliable.
In my time using both HomeKit and Alexa for many months, HomeKit is a more reliable and less finicky ecosystem.
Security
I saved the most important category for last, and I think if you are still on the fence about the best smart home platform in 2020, then it should come back to security. From a technical perspective, I am not going to pretend like I am an expert about knowing why Alexa is more or less secure than HomeKit.
What I do know is that if you are considering cameras as part of your smart home platform, I would avoid Alexa at all costs. We learned a few weeks ago that Ring fired employees for accessing customers’ cameras. The very fact that they have access to camera footage should be reason enough to avoid using them.
With HomeKit Secure Video, not even Apple can access your footage. The cameras encrypt footage to your iCloud account so only you and your family can access it. As we put more and more cameras inside and outside of our homes, I do not trust any company with access to them. The bottom line is that if you value privacy and security, HomeKit and HomeKit Secure Video is your only choice for smart home cameras.
Last year, Apple also launched HomeKit router integration.
Wrap-up on the best smart home platform
If you are starting on your smart home journey, it’s essential to understand the basics. While there are dozens of vendors who make these products, three leading platforms exist, Alexa, Google Assistant, and HomeKit. While most products support Alexa, I think that HomeKit is the best platform to build with because of security and reliability.
Do you agree? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
