Announcing New Course: Smart Lighting with HomeKit in watchOS!

Announcing new Pro Course: Smart Lighting with HomeKit in watchOS

#geekalert — Ever wished you could control your smart home devices from your watch? Sure, you could code up a full iOS app for that, but there's so much more utility in using your watch for those kinds of tasks.

Bring the power of smart devices to your wearables in our new Smart Lighting with HomeKit in watchOS course!

Keep reading to hear more about it from course instructor Jessy Catterwaul:

Why should I take your Smart Lighting with HomeKit course?

"The smart home revolution is well underway. I'm astounded every year at what devices are becoming controllable. (One of my favorites is my coffee mug whose temperature I control with my iPhone and Apple Watch — I can't recommend one of those enough!)

Many of these will require proprietary apps. And if you end up working on a team who creates those apps, raywenderlich.com has many resources to help you out.

But the modern standard is for accessory manufacturers to integrate with smart home ecosystems. Amazon and Google are big players in this space, and so is Apple, who created the HomeKit Accessory Protocol for this purpose. This course will introduce you to what's necessary for creating awesome new home experiences for your users who own accessories that adopt that protocol."

How do you use HomeKit in your own life?

"Adding the ability of constant lighting control to my work environment has been one of the biggest quality of life improvements I've ever made. There was a point in my career where, working in an office with fluorescent bulbs that couldn't be adjusted for brightness, I had migraines at the end of nearly every workday.

Those days are over. And HomeKit has played a big part in that.

In this course, I'll show you how to build the app that I use most these days, to provide instant access to all of the lights in my home — all from my wrist!"

Can you please share a cool HomeKit tip with us?

"HMService is the HomeKit type which represents a controllable feature of an accessory. And HMCharacteristic is a specific trait associated with that service.

Let's say you want to access the characteristic which represents and controls whether a Philips Hue lightbulb, which I use in this course, is on or off. You just do a little bit of digging into the bulb's HomeKit-provided metadata, and find the one called "Power State".

Now, whether you're an energy-conscious dad or not, you're ready to start turning off all the lights in your home, with only a SwiftUI Toggle and a for loop! 😸"

Is there anything else we should know about your Smart Lighting with HomeKit course?

"Although HomeKit is the main focus of this course, we'll be exploring it in the context of a watchOS app. To me, the Apple watch feels tailor-made for the at-a-glance interactions you generally want to have with simple smart hardware controls. There's a lot of opportunity here!"

Hey — the new Ultimate Subscription gets you access to both videos and books, all in the same subscription. Interested? Click here to learn more ➜

Jessy's Smart Lighting with HomeKit in watchOS course is available for Professional subscribers now!

— Ray