Smart homes are becoming increasingly more popular. Why get out of bed and manually turn on the coffee maker when you can just scream at Siri or the nearest smart speaker and get it to do it for you? Our phones are becoming the central hub for everything in our lives. It’s no longer just about social media, texting, calling, and taking photos. Phones now store our bank cards, medical histories, IDs in some regions, house and car keys, and more.
For those building a smart house, Apple HomeKit is one way to control your smart devices from a single app. The Home app allows you to control compatible accessories, create scenes, and set up automations. You can even control your compatible devices when you’re outdoors if you have a HomeKit hub, such as an Apple TV or HomePod. So do the Ring Doorbell and cameras support Apple HomeKit? Here’s what you should know.
Ring Doorbells and Apple HomeKit support
Ring has promised at least once that it will be introducing Apple HomeKit support on its Doorbell devices. Unfortunately, though, this remains an unfulfilled promise. You can control your Ring Doorbell from the dedicated app which the company maintains.
If you’re looking for HomeKit integration, you can look at similar products from other manufacturers. There are some unofficial solutions to trigger HomeKit support on these Ring products. However, they don’t work reliably, and setting them up isn’t a straightforward process.
Considering Apple HomeKit only gets better with each update, we only hope Ring starts supporting this platform. Personally, I would avoid smart home appliances that lack HomeKit support. I’m sure some other users who are strongly tied to the Apple Ecosystem share the same sentiment, too. Ring could lose potential customers for its resistance to support this standard.
The additional elephant in the room is Matter, the upcoming standard for smart home devices. Amazon has committed to integrating Matter into its hardware, and Apple has integrated HomeKit into it. But so far Ring continues to stand firm and try to keep its walled garden approach. Eventually, hopefully, Amazon could force a change, but right now it’s Ring’s way or no way.
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The Ring Video Doorbell 4 has a 1080p camera. It supports both batteries and direct, wired power sources.
Will you be buying a Ring Doorbell, or is the lack of HomeKit support a dealbreaker to you? Let us know in the comments section below.
