Wemo Mini Gains HomeKit Support

Originally published at: https://tidbits.com/2018/07/20/wemo-mini-gains-homekit-support/

Belkin’s Wemo Mini has gained HomeKit support in a software update, making it the first home automation device to do so and paving the way for a larger Apple home automation ecosystem.

I’ve looked into this a bit more, and I think that the utility of HomeKit’s software authentication is being overstated. If you read the various documents at

https://developer.apple.com/homekit/

you can see that the HomeKit Accessory Protocol Specification comes in two flavors, non-commercial and commercial. If you’re tinkering, you’re fine with the non-commercial version. But if you want to sell a product that uses it, you need to use the commercial version, which requires that you be part of the Made For iPhone/iPad program, which has significant (and reportedly expensive) requirements.

So a company like Belkin that is undoubtedly part of MFi already can do software authentication via HASP to avoid additional engineering work on existing products, but HomeKit support for products from small companies that aren’t already MFi licensees remains hard.