HomeKit Insider Podcast
On this episode of the HomeKit Insider Podcast, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy joins from The Verge to discuss a big week of smart home news from Sonos Arc 2 leaks, the launch of the Aqara U200 smart lock, a major brand acquisition, and more evidence pointing to Apple’s mysterious new smart home display.
If you have Philips Hue smart lights, you may notice them instantly jumping to 100% lately. This is a known bug in their Matter integration, and a fix is already in the works.
In the meantime, users can simply disable the Matter integration to solve the issue temporarily. They said it may take up to a week for the update to arrive.
Aqara announced its latest smart lock this past week after a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign. It’s called the U200, and its headlining features include Apple Home Key and Matter support.
It also has the prestige of being the very first retrofit lock to support Home Key. It includes the interior mechanism as well as a wireless keypad and is designed for both US deadbolts and European mortise-style locks.
Electronics giant LG announced its acquisition of Homey, the smart home hub. For the time being, Homey will continue to be standalone, but LG is looking to integrate it into its existing appliances and products.
Apple TV’s InSight feature looks to be working on the latest betas of tvOS 18. This lets viewers see who is in a particular scene and add music to their library.
Users on iOS 18 also noticed they can now connect their P&E accounts to the Home app, too, in beta 3.
We also went hands-on with Nomad’s new 3-in-1 65W wall charger with an integrated Apple Watch puck, plus the Insta360 Flow Pro gimbal with DockKit.
There was new evidence this week of a purported new Sonos soundbar. The presumed Sonos Arc 2 looks to be more high-end than before with a price tag to match.
It’s said to include improved bass, direct Bluetooth playback, and more.
Most of this extra-long episode was spent on yet another leak of Apple’s upcoming smart display. tvOS 18 seems to be hiding a touchscreen interface screen that would be used for such a countertop device.
We dive into plenty of recent rumors, timelines, and what may be most plausible. Currently we’re well-ahead of an announcement but it’s getting closer than ever before.
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