Can Alexa Control Apple Homekit Devices?

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Homekit is a home system made by Apple. This home system allows you to control all your compatible smart objects in one place, and you only need one iOS device to run it.

Can Alexa control Homekit devices? Homekit and Alexa are both smart home hubs, so one cannot directly control the other; however, the devices are a different story. As long as the device attached to your Homekit Hub is compatible with Alexa as well, the two will work seamlessly together.

While you can’t control Homekit with Alexa, controlling the devices themselves is nearly the same thing. The setup is just as easy as non-apple products, and before you know it, you can use voice control through Alexa.

Alexa and Homekit

You will need both Apple and Alexa products to control your Homekit devices through Alexa. Many people use Alexa for their voice commands, and their iPhone or iPad for automation, because Alexa is predominantly a voice-activated system. The bonus to this is that if one system is down, you can just use the other.

Alexa Skills

Alexa uses Skills to control its devices. So to make your Alexa work with your Homekit devices, you will need to locate the devices in skills and download them. There are a vast amount of Skills available, so finding your Homekit device shouldn’t be too difficult.

Once you find your device, simply hit enable, and you should be able to voice activate it whenever you want!

Go to the Amazon Skills page to check your device compatibility.

Homekit Devices

Being able to connect your devices to Alexa will not mean anything if the devices you own are not compatible with Homekit.

Here is a list of Homekit compatible devices.

Alexa on Your iPhone

Despite Amazon and Apple being rivals, you can now download the Alexa Amazon app on your iPhone. This is essential in linking your Alexa technologies, with your Apple technologies; whether you are linking your Homekit devices, Apple Music, Apple TV, etc. You will generally need the Amazon Alexa app to connect anything.

Here is how you set up Alexa on your iPhone:

  1. Locate the Appstore on your phone.
  2. Hit the Search bar at the bottom of the screen.
  3. When the keypad pops up, type in Alexa, and hit search.
  4. Hit the Get button.
    1. If you’ve had the app before but deleted it, the icon will look like a cloud with an arrow pointing downward instead.
  5. When it finishes downloading, hit Open, and it will launch the app.

Alexa and Apple TV

Unfortunately, Alexa is unable to control your Apple TV directly, but with a smart home hub, it is easily done. Luckily for us, most people own some sort of smart home hub.

If you have something like an Echo, you can connect the two just like you would connect any Bluetooth device:

  1. Tell Alexa to turn on Bluetooth.
  2. Go to your Apple TV.
  3. Find your settings.
  4. Go to Bluetooth.
  5. Connect to Alexa.

Once you’ve completed those five simple steps you can use your Echo to turn the television on and off, play or pause your movies, and turn the volume up and down. That is as far as Alexa can take you as far as controls.

Alexa and Apple Music

Amazon and Apple have been long time competitors, and they haven’t always played nice in the past. Being able to use Apple Music on your Amazon Echo device is a relatively new development.

Now you can finally have your Apple subscription in your Alexa app, so you can play your Apple music, on your Echo devices. This is only available in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland.

What You Will Need

Here is a list of the things you will need, and the things you will need to do to set up Apple on your Alexa device.

  • Apple Music subscription
  • An Amazon Device
    • Amazon Echo
    • Amazon Fire TV
    • Alexa enabled speaker
  • Update your Amazon Alexa app

Set-Up

Here are the steps you will need to set up Apple Music on Alexa:

  1. Find the Amazon Alexa app on your phone.
  2. There will be a menu button in the upper-left-hand corner.
  3. Tap Settings.
  4. Find Alexa Preferences, and tap Music.
  5. Hit Link New Service.
  6. Hit Apple Music.
  7. Hit Enable To Use.
  8. Sign in with your Apple ID.

That is all you need to do to set up Apple Music with  Alexa! You can also go to the Skills store for Alexa, and enable the Apple Music Skill.

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