Hands-on with the new map view feature for Apple Home users

Controller for HomeKita third-party app for controlling your Apple Home smart home, has a new Floor Plan Feature which adds a map interface for interacting with connected devices such as lights, locks, blinds, sensors and more. I spent some time with the new feature ahead of its launch this week, and it’s a compelling way to control your smart home. A 3D scan of your home becomes an interactive map filled with all your connected devices, providing an intuitive way to control them: just tap the lamp next to the sofa on the map and the light will turn on.

For those unfamiliar, Controller for HomeKit is a well-regarded app that can manage and control any Apple Home and HomeKit compatible device, scene, automation, and so on. He uses the HomeKit framework meaning it works just like the Apple Home app but offers more complex automations and advanced notifications than the Home app. This makes it a good option for those who like Apple Home but find Apple’s app too limited.

Plant arrives with version 7.0 of Controller for HomeKit (iOS only), which also brings a complete redesign of the application, putting the new control feature in the spotlight. This map-style interface offers an easier way for everyone in your household to control your smart home without having to memorize phrases like “Siri, turn off the left lamp on the couch” or scroll through a list of strange names in an app.

Because of this ease of use, map viewing is becoming a popular control method for homes; Both Amazon Alexa and Samsung SmartThings added a similar interface to their smart home control apps last year. Controlling devices on a map feels more intuitive than the current clunky state of voice control, and is more visual than most current app-based controls.

I’ve been playing around with the new Floor Plan feature for about a day now, and I like how it gives me a quick way to control multiple devices on one screen. I can tap the light bulb in my living room, watch a live feed from my kitchen camera, lock the front door, and see the temperature from the Hue Motion sensor in my dining room, all in one place. Without the floor plan, this would require multiple taps and swipes unless I had those devices set as favorites or tiles in my iPhone’s control panel.

I also tried Amazon’s Map View feature and in practice it is very similar. The biggest difference I’ve noticed so far is that I couldn’t add my HomePods to the floor plan, but I could add Amazon’s Echo speakers to the Alexa map view and control volume and playback directly from there.

Setting up the floor plan was simple. The scanning feature is powered by Apple RoomPlana Swift API that uses the camera and LIDAR scanner on select iPhone and iPad models to create a 3D floor plan (same for the Amazon Alexa version).

Using my iPhone 15 Pro, I walked around my house, slowly guiding my camera through each room, watching as the app filled digital walls and furniture with white lines. The developers behind Controller for HomeKit claim that all data processing is done locally on the iPhone and that the photos used to generate the floor plan are not being uploaded to the cloud.

It took 15 to 30 seconds to map each room and about five minutes to survey the entire downstairs area. The app then stitched the rooms together into one floor plan – I made two floor plans in total, you can make several. The floor plans include furniture, windows, doors, and dimensions, which made it easy to see where to add the icons for each device I wanted to place on the map.

I gave the app permission to access my HomeKit data so it knew what devices I had. Once the floor plan was complete, I could select my accessories from a list – lights, locks, thermostats, cameras, sensors, and so on – and add them to the map reflecting where they are in the real world. I could also add HomeKit scenes to each room to control multiple devices with one tap.

There is a free version and a paid Pro version of Controller for HomeKit, the latter of which adds a backup and restore function among other benefits (it costs $2.99 ​​monthly, $14.49 for a year or $29.99 per month). a lifetime license).

The Floor Plan feature is free, but requires a LIDAR-enabled iPhone or iPad (iPhone 12 Pro, third-generation iPad Pro 11 or newer, or fifth-generation iPad Pro 12.9 or newer) to create it. If you don’t have one but know someone who does, the developers have created one AppClip which allows you to create the floor plan on a friend’s device and import it to your device.

I’m a big proponent of developing new, more intuitive ways to control our smart home devices; it’s very easy for them to become the responsibility of the one person in the house who knows how everything works and has all the control apps on their phone.

Of course, the natural place for this type of map interface is a regular device with a large screen, like a wall-mounted iPad or tablet, or a TV. The Controller for HomeKit has an iPad app that works with the floor plan, Samsung’s SmartThings map view is available on its tablets and TVs; and Amazon said it will bring its map view to its wall-mountable Echo Hub smart home controller this year.

While the map view is a really fun tool for smart home nerds like me – it’s like playing with a digital dollhouse! – the more accessible a feature like Floor Plans is to everyone in the house, the more useful I think it will be. I would love to see Apple add a plan/map view to the Home app and bring it to Apple TV. Point and click with the remote to turn off the lights? That’s smart.

Screenshots by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy/The Verge