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Thread: Apple HomeKit

  1. #11
    Automated Home Legend paulockenden's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by G4RHL View Post
    Am not convinced.
    By what? The timeline is out there.

    Big hoo-ha when Apple dropped the bombshell in July last year, lots of manufacturers up in arms.

    Evohome Wi-Fi had launched the previous month.

    So I think you can get down off the grumpy step. And possibly apologise to Honeywell too!

  2. #12
    Automated Home Legend paulockenden's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by WiteWulf View Post
    Oh, don't get me started on Apple! I love Apple products, have done for years, but their restrictive practice re. chips in devices that work with their kit and certification of Bluetooth devices and similar is just a money-making scheme.
    Now that I Do agree with! Even lightning cables have to have a chip in them!

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by paulockenden View Post
    Now that I Do agree with! Even lightning cables have to have a chip in them!
    The nature of the lighting interface (multiplexed pins) makes it impossible to make one without some sort of chip, however what I think you're grumbling about is that the chip also provides cryptographic "authentication" to the iDevice, without which communication won't be accepted. And that authentication key is per hardware manufacturer and must be licensed from Apple.

    Grumbling about this requirement I do agree with, especially when rumours are the next generation iPhone will not even have a 3.5mm headphone socket, requiring a lightning adaptor for standard headphones...

  4. #14
    Automated Home Jr Member WiteWulf's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DBMandrake View Post
    The nature of the lighting interface (multiplexed pins) makes it impossible to make one without some sort of chip, however what I think you're grumbling about is that the chip also provides cryptographic "authentication" to the iDevice, without which communication won't be accepted. And that authentication key is per hardware manufacturer and must be licensed from Apple.

    Grumbling about this requirement I do agree with, especially when rumours are the next generation iPhone will not even have a 3.5mm headphone socket, requiring a lightning adaptor for standard headphones...
    But the Lightning interface, particularly for iPhones and iPads, is completely unnecessary. It still connects to the host by USB and so provides no benefit to the user and just puts more money in Apple's purse due to licensing. Micro USB would have been a perfect alternative to the old 30-pin connector, but Apple have no control over that. Having said all that, why they chose to go with USB-C for the MacBook I'll never know...

    Anways, we're getting waaaay off topic here, so I'll get off my soapbox ��

  5. #15
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    If you think Lightning is just an over expensive USB-like interface you need to read the technical specs.

    It can do vastly more than USB, even OTG USB. For example can you output a full HD HDMI signal over USB ? Nope... You can with lightning.

    It is not just a method of connecting to a USB host such as a PC.

    The technology behind the lightning interface is actually pretty neat and it is very flexible and powerful. It's just the mandatory "authentication" that I object to, which requires licensing to do legally.
    Last edited by DBMandrake; 11th May 2016 at 01:09 PM.

  6. #16
    Automated Home Legend paulockenden's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DBMandrake View Post
    It is not just a method of connecting to a USB host such as a PC.
    For most people it's simply a way to charge their phone!

    P.

  7. #17
    Automated Home Jr Member WiteWulf's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DBMandrake View Post
    If you think Lightning is just an over expensive USB-like interface you need to read the technical specs.
    Oh, I'm well aware of what it's capable of, it's just not necessary (imho) for the vast majority of users who just want to sync and charge their iDevices...

    It can do vastly more than USB, even OTG USB. For example can you output a full HD HDMI signal over USB ? Nope... You can with lightning.
    Well...it *kinda* can...as you've suggested, the Lightning cable is a clever little beastie. The chip in the HDMI end of the video adapter is essentially a miniaturised Apple TV on a chip. The iPhone or iPad doesn't stream Full HD, but actually transcodes to a 1600x900 h264 stream and uses a hybrid of the Airplay protocol to send the data over the Lightning connection, whereon it's decoded and sent out the HDMI connector by that teeny-tiny AppleTV. By contrast, the old 30-pin video adapter outputted a true 1920x1080 uncompressed video stream. Apple cleverly took the hardware (that most people didn't use) required for video mirroring off the phone and outboarded it to an expensive (and some would say inferior) external device, thus reducing production costs and freeing up space inside the device.

    Rumours suggest they're intending to do the same with the 3.5mm headphone jack. Let's see how that works out for them...


  8. #18
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    Apple is known for selling products "that just work". The reason (I believe) they want the lightning connector to be licensed is so they have control over the quality and design of accessories for Apple products. I think that is a reasonable and fair objective, and I don't think they do it to make money (e.g. Amazon Basics lightning cables sell for £4.99). The huge benefit of this programme is that I know that if I buy a lightning cable, it won't burn out my iPhone. I have no such guarantee with USB cables (especially USB-C, see below).

    I agree that most people just want to charge their device, but would that mean that each Apple device would need to have two connectors (a charging one and a data one)? Micro-USB is an absolutely awful design, and there is zero chance that Apple would have ever adopted it. USB-C seems like the perfect competition to lightning, but I don't know enough about it to know if it can do everything that lightning can.

    Even if USB-C could replace lightning (from the technical capability point of view), there have been quite a few stories about rogue USB-C cables causing permanent damage to devices, so again, I doubt Apple would go down that path.

    Android is the wild west and Apple is a tea party on the lawn of Buckingham Palace -- each has its target audience. Neither is better or worse, they are just different.

  9. #19
    Automated Home Legend paulockenden's Avatar
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    The last bit I agree with - you'd like my mug: http://www.moretvicar.com/collection...ct/android-mug

  10. #20
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    Has anyone tried this ? https://github.com/luc-ass/homebridge-evohome I have used homebridge with some success with the Indigo module but not spent too much time as HomeKit itself is flaky and beyond the Siri novelty I didn't really find it that useful.

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