Elgato, with its Eve line of smart home products is one of the first companies to come out with home accessories that integrate with Apple’s HomeKit home automation platform, and it’s the very first company to produce a Bluetooth-enabled HomeKit product.
The Eve system, which consists of a weather station, an indoor room monitor, a door/window sensor, and a smart outlet, is one of five HomeKit-compatible products that became available for purchase in June. With the Eve components just now shipping out to customers, Elgato invited us to review the lineup to get a feel for what’s possible with Apple’s system.
HomeKit and Eve’s accessory lineup promise to make our homes smarter and our lives easier, but in its current incarnation, HomeKit is a service that feels unfinished. It’s limited in scope and even though I found many of the Eve accessories to be useful, the delays and bugs I ran into with the HomeKit system almost made the frustration outweigh the convenience.
Hardware Overview
As I mentioned above, Elgato currently manufactures four HomeKit-compatible products: Eve Room, Eve Weather, Eve Door & Window, and Eve Energy.
Eve Room – Eve Room is an indoor room monitoring sensor. It measures temperature, humidity, and air quality.
Eve Weather – Eve Weather is an indoor/outdoor sensor that’s simpler than the Eve Room, measuring temperature, humidity, and air pressure.
Eve Door & Window – Eve Door & Window is a two-piece sensor that detects whether a door or window is open or closed.
Eve Energy – Eve Energy is a power sensor and switch that can be used to turn an appliance on and off and detect how much power it’s using.
Each of the Eve products has a clean, unobtrusive design, integrating into any environment without standing out. The Eve Room and the Eve Weather are both small square-shaped sensors resembling an Apple TV, while the Eve Energy is a simple socket. The Eve Door & Window comes in two adhesive-backed pieces to fit on each side of a door or window, snapping together magnetically to detect whether it’s open or closed.