Having a smart home is becoming easier and more accessible. More and more brands are entering this market, and luckily, many of them are 100% with the iPhone. Nevertheless, if you don’t want to use the “Home” app from Apple, here we give you some alternatives so that you can control your Smart Home from your iPhone, without depending on this app.
One iPhone is enough to rule them all
The iPhone itself is a device aggregator. A full-fledged Hub that allows you to control a huge number of lights, curtains, thermostats, ovens or washing machines. And it is that everything fits on an iPhone. Now, Apple has its own app to centralize control of all our devices. This is called “Home” and is installed by default on iPhones. But, to be honest, there are perfectly functional alternatives that become better options when we don’t have a HomePod or Apple TV at home. So, if you have a mixed ecosystem, with Google Nest or Alexa, you won’t even need to use the “Home” app.
Welcome to the independent republic of Google
Although it is competition in some respects, Google is 100% compatible with the iPhone. If you have a Google Home or Google Nest, and you want to control it with your iPhone, you can do so with the Google Home app. This not only allows you to control and configure the assistant in question. But also create groups of lights and devices, divided into rooms and create different routines, depending on the day, the moment or the room we want.
It is a free application, it is downloaded from the App Store and you only need to link your Google account. In addition to all of the above, it offers the possibility of controlling our devices from outside the home, interact directly with our Nest assistant. For example, making the lights turn on when Nest detects our iPhone, something very useful when we enter the house.
Manufacturer apps are wonderful
Some of the applications that we can use are those of the manufacturers themselves. Xiaomi, TP-Link or Philips are among the most popular brands for smart home products. Although a priori it may seem counterproductive, the truth is that they offer many more options than those that Hub-type apps can offer. Hence they can be very useful, if we have different marks assigned in different contexts. For example, smart plugs with TP-Link, lights with Xiaomi, and LED strips with Philips HUE.
Similarly, there are others appliances such as ovens, refrigerators or washing machines, which require somewhat different parameters to work remotely. Manufacturers such as Siemens, Bosch or Balay have the Home Connect app to control these appliances, and have functions such as the timer, temperature or use modes that are already differentiated in each product at hand.
