Embracing the Future of Smart Living: With iOS 18, Your HOME Just Got Smarter

It is often the smallest of changes that can herald the start of something remarkable, turning something ordinary into something extraordinary. Apple's most recent launch of its iOS 18 delivers a tiny step that might just pave the way for smart living as we know it. Read on to find out everything you need to know about this neat little upgrade, and how it may help your HOME become the smart living partner you've been searching for.

Discovering the Preferred HOME Hub Feature

The Dawn of a New Control Era

Hidden in among WWDC 2024’s endless additions and tweaks, buried in a line in the first iOS 18 beta, is something that is game-changing for users of Apple HOME: the ability to select a ‘Preferred HOME Hub’. It was a feature that wasn’t called out in any of the presentations, but it has the potential to revolutionise how we interact with and control our smart HOMES. It could also solve one of the most frequently overlooked problems with the smart home: rather than using the hardwired reliability of an Apple TV, by default your smart HOME’s ‘brain’ is a Wi-Fi-connected HomePod.

A Community's Sigh of Relief

This development was noted by discerning Redditors frequenting the HomeKit subreddit, launching a frenzy of elation among the community’s members sharing experiences and expressing a feeling of collective relief. For far too long, users have had to accept the vagaries of system-assigned hubs. Now, users can take their Apple TV as the hub of choice, a development that holds the promise of new possibilities for smart HOME efficiency and reliability.

Enhancing HOME Efficiency with Hardwired Stability

The Wired Advantage

This update is a big deal. Although Wi‑Fi is handy, it is prone to intermittent interference and congestion, both of which can result in lags in smart HOME responsiveness. An ethernet cable, on the other hand, is a bastion of the senses that will always be most important in the backbone of the smart HOME: the ability to reliably work as fast as possible. Taking the reins as the Preferred HOME Hub and replacing the phone could make the HOME automation experience more robust in iOS 18.

A Closer Look at HomeKit Integration

Seamless Integration and Elevated Experience

Tying this feature into HomeKit shows Apple’s investment not in just maintaining, but enhancing user experience. HomeKit is Apple’s HOME automation software architecture. It’s the glue that connects your HOME and all the devices in it that work with HomeKit. By fine-tuning the system so you can choose your preferred hub, iOS 18 will make a smarter HOME, one that you can tailor to yours needs.

What This Means for Apple HOME Users

Empowering User Choice

At its heart, this update is about empowerment. Apple has, in effect, ‘democratised’ smart HOME control by putting the management of it in its users’ hands. It is reflective of a nuanced sense that the ‘HOME’, in this case, is not just a cluster of objects but a dynamic ecosystem in need of bespoke calibration.

Looking Ahead

The ability to specify a Preferred HOME Hub is just the start: as the smart HOME space matures, the demands of its underlying technology grow. iOS 18 has not only responded to these demands but forecast them, planting seeds for the future that won’t just be a smart HOME, but a responsive one, adaptive to the changing demands of a household.

Exploring the Definition of HOME

With this new technology, it’s worth rethinking what we mean by the word ‘HOME’. The modern HOME is a living, breathing, adaptive entity, intelligent and dynamic; it will not just provide and protect us but do so with a knowledge of our behaviour, our needs and even our moods.

With iOS 18 (available on devices such as an Apple TV) and the power of the processor, the HOME becomes a native playground of bits and bytes, a testament to the potential of adding technology to the domestic experience. It’s in the blending of bits and bytes that dwellings come to reflect you—your lifestyle, the life you live—more completely, in ways you might never have thought possible before.

By living in the world Apple promises with the release of iOS 18, we’re not simply making our HOMES a little smarter — we are reinventing the very notion of HOME, building spaces that know us, anticipate us and respond to us in ways that will increasingly deliver depths of experience.

And what comes next? Innovations already underway are knitting our next HOMES into a powerful, connected and inspirational ecosystem – a living experience closer to what we might have once imagined the space station must feel like, only destined to become our new normal. Welcome to the future of living – welcome HOME.