iOS 18 lets Apple Home users choose their Home Hub

While Apple barely mentioned its smart home platform during its WWDC 2024 keynote this week, Apple Home users can still rejoice in an update discovered in the first iOS 18 beta: they’re getting the option to choose a “Preferred Home Hub.” . This solves the problem of your smart home “deciding” to use Wi-Fi through a HomePod when there’s a perfectly good Apple TV using Ethernet right there.

Eagle-eyed Redditors on HomeKit subreddit I noticed that in the iOS 18 beta there is a new option to select your preferred home hub instead of relying on Apple’s automatic selection, the current choice.

HomeKit users took to the thread to express your joy on this change, saying, among other things, that “This is the most important feature update in Homekit history”, “This is the best news I’ve ever received” and “I can’t believe it! Apple really listened!!!”

What this does is allow users to choose to have their Apple Home automations run on a wired Apple TV as their primary home hub, rather than a Wi-Fi-based HomePod, something widely recognized by users to make the home platform smart work faster and more reliable.

One Apple Home Hublike HomePod or Apple TV, adds the ability to create automations, control devices remotely, and enable local processing for HomeKit secure video cameras on Apple’s smart home platform.

If you only have one Home hub, this change won’t affect you, but for people with large Apple Home setups and multiple hubs, the inability to select which one the system relies on has caused frustration over the years.

While Apple says it chooses the best hub for the job, Reddit users will tell you that’s not the case. When Apple Home defaults to an older model or one that uses Wi-Fi, some users report seeing slow automations and less overall reliability in their smart homes.

Personally, I regularly find my Apple Home running on a HomePod Mini in the far corner of my house rather than on the connected Apple TV in my living room. And when this happens, my automations slow down noticeably and I often can’t access my HomeKit cameras.

Before this change, the only way to force Apple Home to use a specific hub was to disconnect all other hubs. Even so, after plugging them back in, the system usually returns to its original configuration. And while you can disable Home Hub functionality on an Apple TV, it’s not possible on a HomePod.

But with iOS 18, Apple Home users will finally have the control so many have been asking for. If you don’t want to wait until Apple releases iOS 18 in the fall, you can download the developer betas now. Fair warning: you’ll need it on all your home hubs for this to work, and that’s probably not a good idea if you want a perfectly functioning smart home.