Get hands-on experience with the new Map View feature for Apple Home users

Controller for HomeKit, the third-party app for controlling your Apple Home smart home, has a new Floor Plan feature that adds a map interface for interacting with connected devices like lights, locks, blinds, sensors, and more. I had some time with the new feature before its launch this week, and it’s an attractive way to control your smart home. A 3D scan of your home becomes an interactive map populated with all your connected devices, providing an intuitive way to control them: just tap the lamp next to the sofa on the map and the light will turn on.

For the uninitiated: Controller for HomeKit is a well-rated application that can manage and control any devices, scenes, automations and so on compatible with Apple Home and HomeKit. It uses the HomeKit framework, which means it works exactly like the Apple Home app, but offers more complex automations and advanced notifications than the Home app. This makes it a good option for those who like Apple Home but find Apple’s own app too limited.

Floor Plan arrives with version 7.0 of the controller for HomeKit (iOS only), which also completely redesigns the app, bringing the new control feature to the forefront. This map-style interface gives everyone in your home an easier way to control your smart home without having to remember phrases like “Siri, turn off the left sofa lamp” or scroll through a list of awkward names in the app.

Due to its ease of use, map view is becoming a popular home control method; Both Amazon Alexa and Samsung SmartThings added a similar interface to their smart home control apps last year. Controlling gadgets on the map is more intuitive than the current clunky voice control mode, and is more visual than most of today’s app-based controls.

I’ve been playing with the new Floor Plan feature for about a day now, and I like that it allows me to quickly control multiple devices from one screen. I can touch the lamp in the living room, watch the live feed from the camera in the kitchen, close the front door and check the temperature from the Hue Motion sensor in the dining room – all in one place. Without Floor Plan, it would take a lot of taps and swipes unless I set these devices as favorites or tiles in the Control Panel on my iPhone.

I also tried Amazon’s Map View feature and in practice it is very similar. The biggest difference I’ve noticed so far is that I couldn’t add my HomePods to the floor plan, whereas I could add Amazon Echo speakers to the Alexa map view and control volume and playback directly from there.

Setting up the floor plan was simple. The scanning feature is powered by Apple’s RoomPlan, a Swift API that uses the camera and LIDAR scanner in some iPhone and iPad models to create a 3D floor plan (the same goes for the version with Amazon Alexa).

Using my iPhone 15 Pro, I walked around the house, slowly moving the camera around each room and watching as the app filled the walls and furniture with white lines. The developers of the HomeKit controller say all data processing is done locally on the iPhone, and the photos used to generate the floor plan are not sent to the cloud.

Mapping each room took 15 to 30 seconds, and scanning the entire two-story ground floor area took about five minutes. The app then combined the rooms into a floor plan – I made two floor plans in total, you can make multiple of them. The floor plans include furniture, windows, doors, and dimensions, so it was easy to see where to add icons for each device I wanted to place on the map.

I gave the app permission to access my HomeKit data, so it knew what devices I had. Once the floor plan was complete, I could select accessories from the list – lights, locks, thermostats, cameras, sensors, etc. – and add them to the map, reflecting their location in the real world. I could also add HomeKit scenes to each room to control multiple devices with one touch.

There’s a free version and a paid Pro version of the controller for HomeKit, the latter of which adds backup and restore functionality, among other features (costing $2.99 ​​per month, $14.49 for a year, or $29.99 for a lifetime license).

Floor Plan is free, but requires a LIDAR-enabled iPhone or iPad (iPhone 12 Pro, iPad Pro 11 3rd generation or later, or iPad Pro 12.9 5th generation or later). If you don’t have one but know someone who does, the developers created AppClip, which allows you to create a floor plan on a friend’s device and import it to your device.

I’m a big believer in developing new and more intuitive ways to control our smart home devices; it’s too easy for them to become responsible for the one person in the house who knows how everything works and has all the control apps on their phone.

The natural place for this type of map interface is, of course, a common device with a large screen, e.g. an iPad or a tablet mounted on a wall or a TV. The controller for HomeKit has an iPad app that works with Floor Plan, and Samsung SmartThings Map View is available on its tablets and TVs; Amazon has announced that it will offer Map View in its wall-mounted Echo Hub smart home controller this year.

While Map View is a really cool tool for smart home geeks like me, it’s like playing with a digital doll house! — the more accessible a feature like Floor Plan is to everyone in the household, the more useful it will be, in my opinion. I would love for Apple to add a floor plan/map view to the Home app and bring it to Apple TV. Point and click with your remote to turn off the lights? That’s smart.

Screenshots: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy/The Verge