Apple’s ‌iPhone 15‌ lineup is expected to be announced in around two months. A growing pool of rumors about the devices present an increasingly clear picture of what to expect: The ‌iPhone 15‌ and ‌iPhone 15‌ Plus are set to gain the Dynamic Island, the A16 Bionic chip, a USB-C port in place of Lightning, and support for 15W wireless charging with third-party chargers. The iPhone 15 Pro and ‌iPhone 15 Pro‌ Max are expected to offer even further upgrades with features like a new titanium frame, thinner bezels, the A17 Bionic chip, a new periscope telephoto camera with 6x optical zoom on the Pro Max, and a mute button in place of the existing switch. The Pro models could also see a price increase compared to their predecessors.

We also discuss the launch of Threads, Meta’s new Twitter competitor, our current perspective on iPhone cases, and the state of foldables following the debut of the Google Pixel Fold. Listen to The MacRumors Show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro, Google Podcasts, or your preferred podcasts app. You can also copy our RSS feed directly into your podcast player. Watch a video version of the show on the MacRumors YouTube channel.

If you haven’t already listened to the previous episode of The MacRumors Show, where we ponder some of the devices and apps we wish Apple would make.

Subscribe to ‌The MacRumors Show‌ for more episodes, where we discuss some of the topical news breaking here on MacRumors, often joined by exciting guests like Andru Edwards, Kevin Nether, Arnold Kim, Ben Sullins, Mark Gurman, Marcus Kane, Christopher Lawley, Frank McShan, David Lewis, Tyler Stalman, Jon Prosser, Sam Kohl, Quinn Nelson, John Gruber, Federico Viticci, Sara Dietschy, Luke Miani, Thomas Frank, Jonathan Morrison, iJustine, Ross Young, Ian Zelbo, Jon Rettinger, and Rene Ritchie. You can also head over to The MacRumors Show forum thread to engage with us directly. Remember to rate and review the show, and let us know what subjects you would like the podcast to cover in the future.

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According to Apple, users can open up Shazam, tap the blue button, and switch back to the app that was in use to see what’s playing. The Shazam app engages the iPhone‘s microphone to hear the song, and it is able to listen while the other app is in use. After a few seconds, the song will be identified and swapping back to Shazam will show the song name and information.

It is simpler to use the built-in Song Recognition feature in the ‌iPhone‌’s Control Center to identify a song. With Song Recognition, you can open up an app like YouTube, play a song, swipe into Control Center, and tap the Song Recognition icon to determine what’s playing.

Using this method does not require you to exit out of the YouTube app. Once a song is identified, it shows up as a notification or in the Dynamic Island, and you can tap into the Shazam app to get more information.

Identifying a song with Shazam adds it to a Shazam playlist in Apple Music so you can listen to it in full at a later time. For those who don’t have ‌Apple Music‌, the Shazam app also keeps track of recent Shazams.

Shazam can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

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This guide highlights everything new in the third beta of ‌iOS 17‌.

Deleted Photos

In the Recently Deleted album, Apple has made tweaks to the interface. Rather than separate Delete and Recover buttons, there’s now a small three-dot menu icon at the bottom of the display that can be tapped to bring up the recover and delete options.

With no images selected, options include Delete All and Recover All, but with images selected, there is an option to recover or delete specific images. When dealing with Live Photos, if you select one or more ‌Live Photos‌ and tap the management icon, there is a new Save as Video option.

If you are deleting or recovering images of a person, you can choose the “Feature This Person Less” option.

Mental Wellbeing

Apple has made minor design refinements to the Mental Wellbeing section of the Health app, giving it a more streamlined look and color scheme. The colors for various emotions have been changed, and the buttons and background now match mood choice.

Very unpleasant is a lighter purple with more blue and less red, neutral is more of a blue green shade than before, slightly pleasant is a brighter green with more yellow, pleasant is yellow instead of green, and very pleasant is orange.

There’s also an option to turn on reminders to log moods on a scheduled basis. Times include in the middle of the day and at the end of the day, with a customized schedule available.

Apple Music Song Credits

In the Apple Music app, there’s now an option to view song credits by tapping on the three-dot icon next to a song that is playing, searched for, or in a playlist. Credits show all of the performing artists, composition artists, and those who were involved in production and engineering.

This section also houses the option to see the full lyrics, which has been removed from the standard dropdown menu, plus it offers information on the audio quality available such as Lossless or Dolby Atmos.

Home App

There’s now a splash screen that lets you know what’s new with the Home app. For lights that support multiple colors and tones, there are now pre-selected options at the bottom of the interface for quickly changing the color. The color options also show up in Control Center when accessing a specific light.

iOS 17 Public Beta

It’s likely that the third developer beta of ‌iOS 17‌ is the same beta that will be provided to public beta testers, and we could see a public beta in the near future.

Apple promised a public beta in July, and now that are well into July, it could be coming at any time.

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We discuss our wish lists, including some plausible ideas like a foldable iPhone, Apple TV soundbar, task manager and Notion-like productivity app, and even an Apple Books e-reader, as well as some outlandish devices like an Activity Rings fitness band and specific HomeKit appliances. Let us know what your dream Apple devices and apps are in the comments.

Listen to The MacRumors Show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro, Google Podcasts, or your preferred podcasts app. You can also copy our RSS feed directly into your podcast player. Watch a video version of the show on the MacRumors YouTube channel.

If you haven’t already listened to the previous episode of The MacRumors Show, listen to our discussion about our experiences after spending two weeks using the beta versions of watchOS 10, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, macOS Sonoma, and tvOS 17.

Subscribe to ‌The MacRumors Show‌ for more episodes, where we discuss some of the topical news breaking here on MacRumors, often joined by exciting guests like Andru Edwards, Kevin Nether, Arnold Kim, Ben Sullins, Mark Gurman, Marcus Kane, Christopher Lawley, Frank McShan, David Lewis, Tyler Stalman, Jon Prosser, Sam Kohl, Quinn Nelson, John Gruber, Federico Viticci, Sara Dietschy, Luke Miani, Thomas Frank, Jonathan Morrison, iJustine, Ross Young, Ian Zelbo, Jon Rettinger, and Rene Ritchie. You can also head over to The MacRumors Show forum thread to engage with us directly. Remember to rate and review the show, and let us know what subjects you would like the podcast to cover in the future.

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‌watchOS 10‌ is a major update for the Apple Watch, overhauling its entire user interface. The update refocuses the Apple Watch around a scrollable view of widgets, remaps the buttons, and rearranges the Home Screen of apps. Almost all of Apple’s stock apps have received complete redesigns centered around a vertically scrollable view of pages. The update also brings Time in Daylight tracking to Apple Health and adds mood logging to the Mindfulness app.

‌iOS 17‌ introduces features like StandBy mode, Contact Posters, and Live Voicemail, while ‌iPadOS 17‌ makes some meaningful enhancements to Stage Manager, introduces external camera support, and brings over Lock Screen customization, Live Activities, and the Health app from the iPhone.

‌macOS Sonoma‌ adds an integrated video screen saver and wallpaper experience, desktop widgets, Safari web apps, and Game Mode. tvOS 17 is a modest update that redesigns the Control Center and introduces FaceTime via Continuity Camera.

A large number of new features, like interactive widgets, improved autocorrect, the Messages redesign, offline maps, authentication code autofill, Apple Music crossfade, Note links, support for multiple timers, video call reactions and presenter overlays, and improved PDF support, come to several of Apple’s updated operating systems.

Listen to The MacRumors Show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro, Google Podcasts, or your preferred podcasts app. You can also copy our RSS feed directly into your podcast player. Watch a video version of the show on the MacRumors YouTube channel.

If you haven’t already listened to the previous episode of The MacRumors Show, listen to our deep dive into the experience of using Apple’s Vision Pro headset and what to expect when it goes on sale next year.

Subscribe to ‌The MacRumors Show‌ for more episodes, where we discuss some of the topical news breaking here on MacRumors, often joined by exciting guests like Andru Edwards, Kevin Nether, Arnold Kim, Ben Sullins, Mark Gurman, Marcus Kane, Christopher Lawley, Frank McShan, David Lewis, Tyler Stalman, Jon Prosser, Sam Kohl, Quinn Nelson, John Gruber, Federico Viticci, Sara Dietschy, Luke Miani, Thomas Frank, Jonathan Morrison, iJustine, Ross Young, Ian Zelbo, Jon Rettinger, and Rene Ritchie. You can also head over to The MacRumors Show forum thread to engage with us directly. Remember to rate and review the show, and let us know what subjects you would like the podcast to cover in the future.

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Google has found a fun new way to dunk on Apple with an ad campaign for Pixel phones that straddles the line between cute and cringe. The search giant has released five videos — under the campaign name “Best Phones Forever” — which depict sitcom-like interactions between anthropomorphized versions of the Pixel 7 Pro and some sort of iPhone Pro. And it kinda seems like the phones want to bone each other?

Google has pitched this as “what happens when two phones stop being rivals and start being friends,” though the campaign largely focuses on the iPhone’s apparent shortcomings compared to Pixel phones — such as astrophotography, security, and Apple’s lack of foldable devices. The iPhone is basically portrayed as an outdated, inexperienced dumb dumb across all of the videos. It’s a similar riff to Apple’s iconic “Get a Mac” campaign but with phones. And some weird, robotic sexual tension.

Each of the videos follows a similar format. The iPhone and Pixel “characters” take part in various activities together, such as stargazing, watching a sunset, and going to the beach (which may or may not be a date). Then one of two things will happen:

The first is that the iPhone says something lovably stupid to depict its inferiority to Pixel devices (“You know, night sight. With my night light,” it says in “Seeing Stars” after turning on its flash to take better pictures of the night sky) before promptly dying — a nod to long-standing complaints surrounding battery life on older iPhone models. The second is that somber music rolls in and the iPhone starts confessing its jealousy over many of the Pixel 7 Pro’s features. “When I was your age, people were showing me off to their friends,” the iPhone laments in Google’s “Plateau” video. “Astrophotography mode, Call Assist, 30x zoom… you can do so many things I may never be able to.” And then it dies again.

Throughout everything, the iPhone waxes lyrical about how rad it thinks Pixel is, and there are a lot of weird, cutesy “will they, won’t they” moments. The Pixel has to clamber on top of the iPhone to save its life in the beach-themed ad (i.e., the phone activate its Battery Share feature to recharge the iPhone), and at one point, a Pixel Fold replaces the Pixel 7 Pro so that the character can “flash” the iPhone — opening up its brightly lit display like a sexy trench coat.

Poking fun at Apple is a tried and tested method for marketing campaigns at this point. Samsung went heavy on this in the past, seeing particular success with its “Growing Up” ad in 2017. Google’s decision to dunk on the iPhone with chummy, lighthearted teasing also seems to have worked in the search giant’s favor — the reactions to these ads across YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok have been overwhelmingly positive so far. Sure, it’s slightly cringey, but the humor works, and it’s certainly memorable — truly an “enemies to lovers” kinda vibe, though I’m not sure what fanfiction category AO3 would need to file this under.

]]> https://www.latest-apple-news.com/2023/06/21/everything-new-with-carplay-in-ios-17/ Wed, 21 Jun 2023 19:06:41 +0000 http://www.latest-apple-news.com/?guid=0a4faa09335977e7db7a76ee4915f8c8 Apple is introducing new functionality for almost every iPhone app and feature with iOS 17, and CarPlay hasn’t been left out. We haven’t seen the total overhaul of ‌CarPlay‌ that Apple promised last year as of yet, but there are a handful of new features.

SharePlay for the Music App

SharePlay works with the Apple Music app in ‌CarPlay‌, which means everyone in the car, passengers included, can contribute to an ‌Apple Music‌ playlist.

As long as the car owner has an ‌Apple Music‌ subscription and initiates a SharePlay session from ‌CarPlay‌, other people in the car can choose music to play. Each person can scan a QR code generated by the main user to get access to the playlist to add songs to the in-car ‌Apple Music‌ queue.

Only the person who starts the SharePlay session has to have an ‌Apple Music‌ subscription. Everyone else can use ‌Apple Music‌ to contribute without having to pay.

EV Charging Station Improvements

If you have an electric vehicle, the Apple Maps app can provide real-time charging availability for the charging networks that are compatible with your car. The update should make it easier for EV owners to locate nearby charging stations on a trip.

Messages Updates

The Messages app in ‌CarPlay‌ has a revamped interface that makes it easier to quickly reply and re-read a message without taking too much attention away from the road.

Wallpaper

‌iOS 17‌ includes new wallpaper options, which can be expanded to the ‌CarPlay‌ interface.

The All-New CarPlay Experience

Apple at WWDC 2022 previewed the next-generation version of ‌CarPlay‌, which will offer deeper integration with vehicles in the future. Apple did not talk about the new ‌CarPlay‌ experience at WWDC 2023, but the company did say in 2022 that the first cars with the updated technology will be coming in late 2023.

‌CarPlay‌ will support multiple displays, showing up across all of the displays in a vehicle, including the instrument cluster. Apple will be able to offer a consistent experience throughout the car, and ‌CarPlay‌ will integrate with the speedometer, tachometer, odometer, fuel gauge, and more.

The vehicle’s climate controls will also be accessible through ‌CarPlay‌ in upcoming vehicles, letting users adjust temperature and activate other in-car climate features through the ‌CarPlay‌ interface.

With the revamped ‌CarPlay‌ experience slated for a 2023 launch, we can likely expect to see additional ‌CarPlay‌ features coming in future ‌iOS 17‌ updates. Car brands that will support next-generation ‌CarPlay‌ include Acura, Audi, Ford, Honda, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Porsche, and Volvo.

Read More

More information on all of the new features in the ‌iOS 17‌ update can be found in our iOS 17 roundup.

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Dan is one of the lucky individuals who has had a chance to try out Vision Pro, so we discuss his personal experience with the device. We talk through the headset’s comfort, external battery pack, eye-tracking, and input mechanisms, as well as its price point, and whether it can replace any existing Apple devices.

• Video: Trying the Apple Vision Pro Headset

We reflect on Vision Pro’s eye tracking technology and what sort of trajectory the product line is likely to follow. We also touch on whether the 15-inch MacBook Air has lived up to expectations now that users have got their hands on it.

Listen to The MacRumors Show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro, Google Podcasts, or your preferred podcasts app. You can also copy our RSS feed directly into your podcast player. Watch a video version of the show on the MacRumors YouTube channel.

If you haven’t already listened to the previous episode of The MacRumors Show, listen to our discussion with Andru Edwards and Kevin Nether from the Apple Podcasts studio in Apple Park to discuss first impressions of the Vision Pro headset and the wave of other announcements the company made at WWDC this year.

Subscribe to ‌The MacRumors Show‌ for more episodes, where we discuss some of the topical news breaking here on MacRumors, often joined by exciting guests like Arnold Kim, Ben Sullins, Mark Gurman, Marcus Kane, Christopher Lawley, Frank McShan, David Lewis, Tyler Stalman, Jon Prosser, Sam Kohl, Quinn Nelson, John Gruber, Federico Viticci, Sara Dietschy, Luke Miani, Thomas Frank, Jonathan Morrison, iJustine, Ross Young, Ian Zelbo, Jon Rettinger, and Rene Ritchie. You can also head over to The MacRumors Show forum thread to engage with us directly. Remember to rate and review the show, and let us know what subjects you would like the podcast to cover in the future.

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1. Collaborative Playlists

Perhaps one of the most requested features coming to ‌Apple Music‌ this year, Collaborative Playlists will give subscribers the ability to invite friends to add and edit songs in a shared playlist. Rival streaming services like Spotify have had similar features for a while now, so it’s good to see that Apple has finally read the room.

When a person adds a song to a Collaborative Playlist, their profile picture appears beside the track. People invited to the playlist will also be able to react to their favorite songs using emoji.

Apple says Collaborative Playlists will be available in an update later this year, so this feature may not be included when ‌‌iOS 17‌ is released in the fall‌.

2. Crossfade

Another feature that rival music streaming services have had for some time is crossfade, and now it’s coming to ‌Apple Music‌. That’s right – soon you’ll be able to smoothly transition between songs so the music never stops.

If you’re running the first ‌iOS 17‌ developer beta, don’t try to enable Crossfade in Settings -> Music just yet – it invariably crashes the app. Apple clearly needs more time to iron out the creases in this feature.

3. SharePlay for CarPlay

In ‌iOS 17‌, when you’re playing music via CarPlay, there’s a new SharePlay option that lets you play from an iPhone other than the one that’s connected to the car.

By accepting a notification or scanning a QR code, soon even passengers in the back seat will be able to play their favorite music and contribute to what’s playing.

4. Camera Support for Karaoke

If you’ve not used ‌Apple Music‌ Sing before, the feature basically uses the app’s built-in follow-along lyrics, while also adding a toggle to turn down the vocals of a song to replace them with your own.

In ‌iOS 17‌, you’ll also be able to watch yourself perform your favorite hits at your own karaoke party. That’s because ‌Apple Music‌ Sing is getting support for Continuity Camera, which lets you wirelessly pair your ‌iPhone‌ or iPad with a Mac or Apple TV 4K and use it as a camera.

5. Redesigned UI

The ‌Apple Music‌ app user interface is receiving some nice quality of life improvements and design tweaks. The music player now features full-screen animated artwork on supported albums, allowing them to seamlessly blend into the media playback controls at the bottom.

In addition, when you minimize the music player, it takes on a depth effect that makes it appear as though it’s hovering over the rest of the interface as you navigate through the app. Lastly, Apple is making non-synced lyrics easier to read by adopting a larger and more legible font.

Want to try the new ‌Apple Music‌ features for yourself? If you can’t wait for the official release – and you have a spare ‌iPhone‌ that isn’t your daily driver – the ‌iOS 17‌ beta is now available to download on iPhones for free.

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One connected lock does not a smart home make. If you want to get serious with home automation, start with a smart home platform.

When you first get started with home automation, you’ll quickly find that your smart gadgets do even more when they work together. Yes, it’s great that your smart lights can turn on automatically at sunset and your smart lock will lock itself, but what’s even better is saying “Good night” to a voice assistant and having the shades lower, the lights turn off, the door locks lock, and the alarm system arm. For this, you need a smart home platform.

As a smart home reviewer, I am often asked which is the best platform to use. Is it Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, or something else? I tend to tread carefully when making a recommendation. Picking a smart home platform is a commitment. This is something you’re bringing into your home and will live with every day. I know from experience that it will make you both very happy and also drive you up the wall.

So, similar to how a therapist might guide you to the right decision, I’ll help you choose the smart home platform for you by providing the tools you need to make that decision. I’ll go over exactly what a smart home platform is, whether you need a hub, and give you my top tips for how to pick the best smart home platform for you.

What is a smart home platform, and do I need one?

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

A smart home platform is a software framework that controls and manages multiple devices from multiple manufacturers, usually through a smartphone or tablet app. Most smart home platforms have a hardware component, such as a hub and / or a smart speaker / display (more on hubs in a bit). Of course, if you have a smartphone, you already have a smart home platform in your hand, although you’ll want to add a hub or smart speaker for the fun stuff.

A smart speaker adds hands-free voice control to your smart home, and the voice assistant you choose will likely dictate the platform you use. A smart display also adds touch controls for smart home devices.

The main advantage of a smart home platform is organization. It allows you to put all your connected devices in one app where you can organize them by groups. This makes controlling things much easier. For example, grouping all the lights in the kitchen into a “Kitchen” group means you can hit a smart button or say, “Turn on the kitchen lights” and have all the lights turn on.

A smart home platform is also essential for creating automations (also known as scenes and routines) that make your home “smart.” These can run devices automatically based on certain triggers, such as time of day, when an action happens (motion in a hallway, a door locking), or a command to a voice assistant. Automations can do one task or many. For example, at 9PM every night, lock the back door; or, when the front door unlocks between 5PM and 8PM, have the smart speaker play a playlist, turn the lights to full brightness, and adjust the thermostat.

You don’t need a platform to use smart home devices. If you have a couple of smart gadgets that largely look after themselves, such as a smart thermostat and a smart door lock, and you don’t mind using a couple of different apps, then don’t sweat it. But if you want to manage all your devices with one app, control them in groups using your voice, and maybe connect them all together into smart home automations, then picking a platform is pretty important.

Many devices can work across multiple ecosystems — for example, Nest security cameras work with Alexa smart displays, Ring doorbells work with Samsung smart fridges, and Ecobee thermostats work with every platform. But cross-platform compatibility is still complicated. Despite the new smart home standard Matter that’s designed to fix this (more on this later), we’re sadly still a long way from the point where you can buy any smart device and plug it in, and it will just work with your smart home.

To avoid frustration, my advice is to pick one platform and stick with devices that work with it. I would also consider buying Matter devices when available, which work with all the major platforms. This means if Matter does succeed in making interoperability a nonissue, migrating to another platform will also be easier.

Four things to consider when picking a smart home platform

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

For most people, one of the four mainstream DIY smart home platforms — Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, or Samsung SmartThings — is the best place to start. There are other options — the open-source Home Assistant, professionally installed solutions like Crestron, Savant, and Vivint, and smaller DIY platforms like Hubitat and Homey. But these are largely specialized, and unless you know one of these will fit your needs, I’d recommend starting with one of the generally less expensive, more mainstream options.

To help choose which one will work for you, ask yourself these questions:

Which smartphone do you use?

Your smartphone comes with a smart home platform built in. If you use an iPhone, then Apple Home is an excellent option. Samsung Galaxy users will find SmartThings integrates really well with their devices — the same with Google Pixel and the Google Home platform. While Amazon doesn’t have a phone (its Alexa app works on iOS and Android), if your family uses Amazon’s Fire tablets or already has an Echo Dot, Alexa will fit in well. But keep in mind that while you can easily use Alexa, SmartThings, or Google Home with an iPhone, you can’t use Apple Home with Android.

In short, the more personal computing devices you already have in an ecosystem — smartwatches, tablets, laptops, plus media devices like speakers or streaming sticks — the better that dedicated ecosystem will work for you. If you’re in a household with multiple different smartphone ecosystems, you’ll need a platform or platforms that works with everyone’s devices.

Which devices do you already own?

The next thing to consider is which smart devices you already own. All of the major players have key pieces of hardware that allow their platforms to do more in your home. If you have a smart speaker or streaming device from Apple, Amazon, or Google, you’ve got a good foundation for building your smart home on that platform. These add voice control and can act as a hub for controlling your devices when you’re away from home.

If you already have a smart device like an Amazon smart thermostat or Google Nest video doorbell, you should consider that platform first. Similarly, if you already have some smart lights, a smart lock, or maybe a smart security system, check to see which platforms your existing devices are compatible with before picking your platform. However, remember that many smart devices work across multiple ecosystems, so you aren’t necessarily stuck with the one you started with.

Which is your favorite voice assistant?

Do you love Alexa’s fart jokes? Are you a Google search addict? Do you like your voice assistant to be pretty but not so smart (*cough* Apple)? The three main voice assistants are Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant (sorry, Bixby!), each of which has a distinct “personality.” The one you get along with best will be key to picking the platform you want to use. (Samsung SmartThings works with both Alexa and Google Assistant),

All three work well for smart home management, letting you control connected devices with your voice. “Hey Siri, turn on the lights.” “Hey Google, turn on the TV.” “Alexa, lock the door.” All can be used with a smartphone or tablet, but for smart home control, they work better with a smart speaker or display so that anyone in your house can summon them.

Smart speakers and their screen-toting siblings also have more functions. They can work as home intercoms, listen for things happening in your home when you’re away (such as smoke alarms or glass breaking), and function as a chime for a video doorbell. With a screen, they can also show livestreams from a security camera: “Hey Google, show me who is at the front door.”

Which features do you want?

Along with automating your gadgets, a smart home platform can add new abilities to them. Deciding what you want your smart home to do for you will help you choose which platform will fit your needs. We have deep dives into each platform coming this week, but here are some examples of features each platform does well:

• Apple Home’s HomeKit Secure Video platform provides a secure way to use connected cameras in your home, with all the processing done locally on an Apple TV or HomePod before being securely stored in your iCloud account.
• Samsung’s SmartThings Energy is an energy management system that monitors your home’s energy use (through compatible devices — largely Samsung appliances for now) and provides proactive tips to help you save energy.
• Amazon’s Alexa Hunches feature uses AI to learn your routines and suggest helpful actions — such as reminding you if you’ve left your door unlocked at night.
• Google Home’s presence-sensing feature can automatically adjust your home based on whether there is anyone in it.

What’s a smart home hub, and do you need one?

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

You don’t need a smart home hub to run a smart home, but it can do more with one. A smart home hub is the brains of your smart home platform, managing and controlling your devices in your home. While the smart home app on your phone largely does the same thing, when you leave the house with your phone, your smart home has to rely on the cloud to operate. With a hub in your home, everything on the platform can still run automatically and, in some cases, run locally on your home network. This means your lights will still turn on even if the internet is down.

The traditional smart home hub has been a small plastic box packed with home automation radios that you plug into your router and which acts as a translator for devices that use different smart home protocols, such as Z-Wave, Zigbee, Bluetooth LE, Thread, and Wi-Fi. But the concept of a hub has changed in the last few years, and that type of multi-radio hub is more suited for advanced setups, particularly if you want to use Z-Wave devices. Some options include Hubitat, Homey, and the Aeotec Smart Home Hub.

Today, hubs have become more general-purpose, and all four platforms have variations on the concept. The Apple TV and HomePods are Apple Home Hubs, Samsung SmartThings has hubs built into its TVs and other devices, and Google’s Nest Hubs are smart displays that support Thread. Amazon Alexa’s Echo (fourth-gen) speaker and Echo Show 10 (second-gen) smart display are smart home hubs because they support Zigbee, unlike the company’s other smart speakers and displays. If you use any of these platforms, having one of these hubs will expand the functionality of your smart home.

It’s worth quickly mentioning bridges here, which are sometimes called hubs, just to confuse things further. Generally, a bridge controls one protocol and is manufacturer-specific — such as Philips Hue’s bridge which controls its Zigbee-based smart lighting system, or Aqara hubs which control its smart home devices. Bridges can connect to smart home hubs to add their devices to that platform.

All the major platforms have added Matter controller functionality to their existing hubs, meaning you may already have one in your home. Matter controllers do the same thing as a smart home hub — they connect devices (specifically, Matter devices) to each other and to the internet and allow you to control them through a smart home platform. A key benefit of Matter is that it works locally in your home over Wi-Fi and Thread protocols.

Matter is not a smart home platform, nor is it technically a protocol. Rather, it’s a new communication standard designed to make it easier for smart home devices to work together and with every platform. You can use Matter devices with Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, Home Assistant, and others. This is designed to make it easier to buy connected devices because if something works with Matter, it should work with all of the major smart home platforms.

The smart home can be a daunting prospect, and a smart home platform makes it easier to get started with connected devices and to get the most out of them. Whether you choose Apple Home, Google Home, SmartThings, Amazon Alexa, or another option, picking a platform can take your home from automated to smart.

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