This App Puts My Apple Home Smart Devices into an Interactive Map

Controller for HomeKit, a third-party app for managing your Apple Home smart home, has introduced a new Floor Plan feature. This innovative addition allows users to create a map interface for interacting with connected devices such as lights, locks, shades, sensors, and more. After spending some time with the new feature ahead of its launch this week, I can say it's a compelling way to control your smart home. A 3D scan of your house becomes an interactive map filled with all your connected devices, providing an intuitive control method: Just tap the lamp next to the sofa on the map, and that light will turn on.

What is Controller for HomeKit?

For those unfamiliar, Controller for HomeKit is a well-regarded app that can manage and control any Apple Home and HomeKit-compatible devices, scenes, automations, and more. It leverages the HomeKit framework, functioning similarly to the Apple Home app but offering more complex automations and advanced notifications. This makes it an excellent option for users who appreciate Apple Home but find the native app too limited.

Introducing the Floor Plan Feature

The Floor Plan arrives with version 7.0 of Controller for HomeKit (iOS only), which also brings a complete redesign, placing the new control feature front and center. This map-style interface offers an easier way for everyone in your home to control smart devices without memorizing phrases like, "Siri, turn off the left sofa lamp" or scrolling through a list of awkward names in an app.

The Floor Plan feature is part of a paid subscription and requires a LIDAR-enabled iPhone or iPad.

Scanning my home to create a floor plan using the Controller for HomeKit app.

A Popular Control Method

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

My Experience with the Floor Plan Feature

I've been exploring the new Floor Plan feature for about a day, and I appreciate how it offers a quick way to control multiple devices from one screen. I can tap the lamp in my living room, view a livestream from the camera in my kitchen, lock the front door, and check the temperature from the Hue Motion sensor in my dining room all from one interface. Without the Floor Plan, this would require multiple taps and swipes unless those devices were set as favorites or tiles in my iPhone's Control Panel.

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

Setting Up the Floor Plan

Setting up Floor Plan was straightforward. The scanning feature is powered by Apple’s RoomPlan, a Swift API that uses the camera and LIDAR scanner on certain iPhone and iPad models to create a 3D floor plan (the same applies to the Amazon Alexa version).

Using my iPhone 15 Pro, I walked through my house, slowly guiding my camera around each room, watching as the app filled in digital walls and furniture with white lines. The developers behind Controller for HomeKit ensure that all data processing is done locally on the iPhone and that the photos used to generate the floor plan are not sent to the cloud.

It took 15 to 30 seconds to map each room and about five minutes to scan my entire split-level downstairs area. The app then stitched the rooms together into a floor plan — I created two floor plans in total, and you can do multiple. The floor plans include furniture, windows, doors, and dimensions, making it easy to see where to add icons for each device I wanted to place on the map.

Pricing and Availability

There’s a free version of Controller for HomeKit as well as a paid Pro version. The latter adds a backup and restore function, among other benefits. The Pro version costs $29.99 (approximately ₹2,500) per year or $99.99 (approximately ₹8,300) for a lifetime license. The Floor Plan feature requires the Pro plan, but you can try it out for free with a 7-day trial.

You also need a LIDAR-enabled iPhone or iPad (iPhone 12 Pro, iPad Pro 11 third-gen or newer, or iPad Pro 12.9 fifth-gen or newer) to create the Floor Plan. If you don’t own one but know someone who does, the developers have created an AppClip that lets you create the Floor Plan on a friend’s device and import it to your device.

The Controller for HomeKit iPad app supports the new Floor Plan feature and offers a better screen size for interacting with the map than an iPhone.

The Controller for HomeKit iPad app supports the new Floor Plan feature and is a better screen size for interacting with the map than an iPhone.

Conclusion

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

Of course, the natural place for this type of map interface is on a communal device with a large screen, like an iPad or tablet mounted on a wall or a TV. Controller for HomeKit has an iPad app that works with Floor Plan, Samsung’s SmartThings map view is available on its tablets and TVs, and Amazon has said it will bring its map view to its wall-mountable Echo Hub smart home controller this year.

While a map view is a seriously fun tool for smart home enthusiasts, the more accessible a feature like Floor Plan is to everyone in the house, the more useful it will be. I would love to see Apple add a floor plan/map view to the Home app and bring it to Apple TV. Point and click with your remote to turn the lights off? That’s smart.

Stay tuned to Kushal Bharat Tech News for more updates on smart home technology and other tech news.