Apple ID - no iCloud ?

[SauRoNZA]

You have got a serious issue when it comes to Apple.

Would apply the same logic to anyone/anything else.

I only consider it “documentation” from the source who created it.

Anyone else is out of the direct loop.

 

[Dolby]

Alexa has had Apple music support for a while, it just wasn't always available for SA Apple Music accounts. It's one of the main reasons we switched to Spotify. That and my kids said the catalogue was better.

Anyway - I'm not moving away from Alexa any time soon due to all the Sonoff switches I have in the house.

Can HomePods not support Sonoff or Shelly easily?

I thought the issue is non HomeKit support which only meant not baked into the OS

 

[Dolby]

Would apply the same logic to anyone/anything else.

I only consider it “documentation” from the source who created it.

Anyone else is out of the direct loop.

What about all the users that have experienced it and having issues with more than one stream?

I understand that every 3rd party sits / review /info could be lying - but the users too ?

Shocking how many people have it for Apple and lie or cripple apps on the platform intentionally

 

[SauRoNZA]

What about all the users that have experienced it and having issues with more than one stream?

I understand that every 3rd party sits / review /info could be lying - but the users too ?

Shocking how many people have it for Apple and lie or cripple apps on the platform intentionally

Chances are the users are wrong, or it maybe applied at a point in time or a particular plan or some such.

More than enough evidence in this thread in the here and now that it’s not the case, so forget what the “users” think.

 

[greg0205]

Alexa has had Apple music support for a while, it just wasn't always available for SA Apple Music accounts. It's one of the main reasons we switched to Spotify. That and my kids said the catalogue was better.

Anyway - I'm not moving away from Alexa any time soon due to all the Sonoff switches I have in the house.

Totally get that.

Had a Firestick for like five minutes and the Alexa remote was the most Amazon the house has ever been.

Really just starting the smart home thing now and I'm obviously looking at it from a Siri/HomeKit perspective... The whole thing would be a bunch easier if Core were selling HomePods, but it is what it is.

 

[greg0205]

Can HomePods not support Sonoff or Shelly easily?

I thought the issue is non HomeKit support which only meant not baked into the OS

It's not HomeKit support that's the problem, I recon. It's getting the HomePod in the first place.

 

[Dolby]

Chances are the users are wrong,

Ah - of course ... I should have realised

 

[bwana]

Can HomePods not support Sonoff or Shelly easily?

I thought the issue is non HomeKit support which only meant not baked into the OS

Not AFAIK, if they can then it's a recent development.

Totally get that.

Had a Firestick for like five minutes and the Alexa remote was the most Amazon the house has ever been.

Really just starting the smart home thing now and I'm obviously looking at it from a Siri/HomeKit perspective... The whole thing would be a bunch easier if Core were selling HomePods, but it is what it is.

I won a Echo Dot here at MyBB. Wanting something to do with it I bought some sonoff basics off Amazon followed by more Dots and then more switches of different kinds. My fate was sealed.

When it comes to productivity I'm all Apple. Macbooks, phones, and tablets... I could probably justify an Apple Watch with little effort. Aside from that I'm happy with other ecosystems, like Amazon/Sonoff for home automation, and Roku for my TVs, etc. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[greg0205]

Not AFAIK, if they can then it's a recent development.

I won a Echo Dot here at MyBB. Wanting something to do with it I bought some sonoff basics off Amazon followed by more Dots and then more switches of different kinds. My fate was sealed.

When it comes to productivity I'm all Apple. Macbooks, phones, and tablets... I could probably justify an Apple Watch with little effort. Aside from that I'm happy with other ecosystems, like Amazon/Sonoff for home automation, and Roku for my TVs, etc. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LOL. Can't think of a better way to get started.

Turns out I like making my life real difficult... Getting the HomePods out here is an effort in the first place, and now I've set my sights on some Philips Hue gear... which Philips don't bring to South Africa either.

Eish.

 

[Dolby]

LOL. Can't think of a better way to get started.

Turns out I like making my life real difficult... Getting the HomePods out here is an effort in the first place, and now I've set my sights on some Philips Hue gear... which Philips don't bring to South Africa either.

Eish.

I think & hope that going forward the Shelly devices are going to support. They keep saying it's just a firmware update on the new devices, but it hasn't come yet.

Of course, it does mean that I'll need to update all my Shelly hardware

 

[bwana]

LOL. Can't think of a better way to get started.

Turns out I like making my life real difficult... Getting the HomePods out here is an effort in the first place, and now I've set my sights on some Philips Hue gear... which Philips don't bring to South Africa either.

Eish.

I'm sure the HomePod is the bestest thing ever but it does seem like a schlep getting them out here. And the cost! Looking at Amazon now I can get four 3rd gen echo dots, for the price of one HP. The same was true when I decided on Rokus over the aTv.

I did buy an AirTag last month and it's the surprise purchase of the year for me. Being able to track my suitcase from airport to airport during a recent trip to Uganda was worth it's price many times over. I've got a second one arriving today

 

[greg0205]

I think & hope that going forward the Shelly devices are going to support. They keep saying it's just a firmware update on the new devices, but it hasn't come yet.

Of course, it does mean that I'll need to update all my Shelly hardware

I don't think there's a definitive timeline for devices becoming Matter compliant, but it seems support will happen sooner rather than later.

 

[greg0205]

I'm sure the HomePod is the bestest thing ever but it does seem like a schlep getting them out here. And the cost! Looking at Amazon now I can get four 3rd gen echo dots, for the price of one HP. The same was true when I decided on Rokus over the aTv.

I did buy an AirTag last month and it's the surprise purchase of the year for me. Being able to track my suitcase from airport to airport during a recent trip to Uganda was worth it's price many times over. I've got a second one arriving today

View attachment 1366127

Parallel importers here are taking the piss... Three and a half or four thousand ZAR for a $99 or €99 device, so you have to import yourself, buy when you travel, or have friends and family buy when they travel.

I get that we don't get full Apple Siri support out here and Core can always fall back on that excuse, but you can do a bunch with them in HomeKit anyway.

That AirTag tracking looks brilliant.

 

[Dolby]

I don't think there's a definitive timeline for devices becoming Matter compliant, but it seems support will happen sooner rather than later.

Not Matter compliant - just being able to support Homekit in the current form

Homekit apparently needs more hardware resources than Alexa and Google Home, and the current are limited to 2MB and old chips. The new have 4MB and the newer ESP - so they can now do all 3 voice assistants , with an update

 

[greg0205]

Not Matter compliant - just being able to support Homekit in the current form

Homekit apparently needs more hardware resources than Alexa and Google Home, and the current are limited to 2MB and old chips. The new have 4MB and the newer ESP - so they can now do all 3 voice assistants , with an update

Ah, roger that.

Just had a look at their website and that's nice gear.

 

[Spizz]

I'm sure the HomePod is the bestest thing ever but it does seem like a schlep getting them out here. And the cost! Looking at Amazon now I can get four 3rd gen echo dots, for the price of one HP. The same was true when I decided on Rokus over the aTv.

I did buy an AirTag last month and it's the surprise purchase of the year for me. Being able to track my suitcase from airport to airport during a recent trip to Uganda was worth it's price many times over. I've got a second one arriving today

View attachment 1366127

I did the same on a recent trip to Aus, but it was a bit disconcerting when I was at the carousel and it said the case is with me. It took another few seconds before I saw it coming through the hatch about 15 to 20m away I suppose but I reckon that would be good enough to get in the area and start playing a sound or get a visual.

 

[bwana]

I did the same on a recent trip to Aus, but it was a bit disconcerting when I was at the carousel and it said the case is with me. It took another few seconds before I saw it coming through the hatch about 15 to 20m away I suppose but I reckon that would be good enough to get in the area and start playing a sound or get a visual.

For me the connecting flights have always been the most disconcerting. Being able to "see" the bag was in the right place was good enough.

That said, the directional finder was pretty cool. On one flight it was strong enough for me to locate the bag inside the hold from inside the cabin. If the plane had wifi I probably could have tracked it's progress for the entire trip.

My only gripe with the AirTag is that only one person can track a tag. As far as I'm concerned that's plain dumb on Apple's part.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Really just starting the smart home thing now and I'm obviously looking at it from a Siri/HomeKit perspective... The whole thing would be a bunch easier if Core were selling HomePods, but it is what it is.

As a hardcore Apple user and one with HomePods let me save you some trouble.

HomeKit is great as a "frontend" for your Smart Home....but much like Alexa it's quite terrible at being the central hub of a Smart Home as it lacks simple logic and basic things that make life really hard and unnecessary...which could change at any moment with a little effort from Apple and things like Thread coming along but we aren't quite there yet.

However unlike Alexa on the flip side HomeKit is actually very open and easy to connect to, so just adding a simple Bridge to the HomeKit opens a massive door to getting anything support by HomeKit natively into it from a third party source.

Enter Home Assistant which let's you connect anything and everything to it and then you can simply "forward" it into HomeKit and use that as the front end control mechanism which includes Siri and HomePods etc obviously.

The only problem is you need an Apple TV or HomePod to make it work in the first place, or an iPad but that doesn't help if you run around with it.

I have 50+ devices in HomeKit of which only 2 are official HomeKit products and one of them is the most unreliable piece of kak at that.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Not AFAIK, if they can then it's a recent development.

Not directly. As far as I know there isn't even Shortcuts support.

But Home Assistant makes it all possible.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Parallel importers here are taking the piss... Three and a half or four thousand ZAR for a $99 or €99 device, so you have to import yourself, buy when you travel, or have friends and family buy when they travel.

I get that we don't get full Apple Siri support out here and Core can always fall back on that excuse, but you can do a bunch with them in HomeKit anyway.

That AirTag tracking looks brilliant.

Yeah just buy directly from Apple and use MyUS.

Cost me around R1800 each landed and about two weeks round trip.

USD is probably a bit worse now though but you'll still get it for half what the locals charge.

Budget for some high wattage USB-C adaptors (or just get Apple ones) because that US converter plug nonsense is painful.