iOS 8 Swift Programming Cookbook

Chapter 4. Managing Home Appliances with HomeKit

4.0. Introduction

A variety of accessories have been built that can interact with iOS over the years. Many of these accessories work in a home environment. For instance, the projector in a cinema room inside the house or an accessory that adjusts the temperature of the water in a swimming pool can be controlled via Apple’s new technology, appropriately named HomeKit. This is a framework that allows us to initiate contact with these accessories in the context of a home.

Now let’s have a look at a simple home setup. This house has four floors: a basement and the ground, first, and the second floors. The house has seven bedrooms on two different floors. The underground floor has a few things that excite us. One is a cinema room with a fantastic projector and some comfortable cinema seats. The chairs are reclining chairs whose positions can be adjusted to suit each viewer’s needs. In front of the projector, a few meters away, a white screen can descend from the ceiling to cover the wall so that the projector can project there, giving us a great picture while playing games or watching TV and videos.

We open the door from inside the cinema room and reach the indoor pool. There is a device that allows us to cover the swimming pool with a hard material that reclines as well, so that we can cover the pool when we don’t need it and makes sure the kids won’t fall into it at night or when not under supervision of an adult. We also have a Jacuzzi ...