HomeKit Is Smart Home Automation Certification From Apple

With the dawn of the Smart Home comes Apple's jump into the fray. This week at WWDC 2014, Apple has announced their first Home Automation Certification initiative called HomeKit. With this certification comes official Apple interactivity along with APIs for developers to work with.

A common network protocol will be delivered, said Apple's Craig Federighi, "there are great apps and devices on the market, but we thought we could bring some rationality to this." Federighi went on to show a slide with names of collaborators ready to work with Apple.

This slide included:

iDevices

iHome

Texas Instruments

Osram SYLVANIA

CREE

Chamberlain

Marvell

Skybell

August

Honeywell

Haier

Schlage

Philips

Kwikset

Broadcom

Netamo

Withings

Apple will be working with locks, lights, doors, thermostats, cameras, switches, and plugs. In this certification comes Siri integration, the grouping of devices into "scenes", control of individual devices, and secure pairing.

Stick around as we see how deep this integration goes. We'll likely soon be turning our lights out and our locks tight with a request to our favorite smart assistant. Have a peek at SlashGear's Apple hub for more.