When it comes to building a smart home, few steps are as important as choosing your smart home platform. Pick the wrong one, and you could be left using dozens of separate smartphone apps to control all your gadgets.
Apple HomeKit and Amazon Alexa are two of the best options available today — but which one is better for you? Here’s a comparison of the two platforms to help you decide.
What is a smart home platform?
Smart home platforms offer a centralized place to control all your smart home products. After loading up the software (whether it be on your phone or a hub device), you’ll be able to see a list of everything in your smart home and have easy access to all their controls.
Of course, you don’t necessarily need to use a smart home platform, as most smart home products come with their own standalone applications. But if you have tons of gizmos sitting around your house, each with their own app, it can be cumbersome to flip through all of them to carry out basic tasks. With a smart home platform such as
Hub devices
Hub devices are the center of most smart homes, with both smart speakers and smart displays giving you ways to control the rest of your setup. However, Apple doesn’t have the most robust selection of HomeKit hubs, as you’ll largely be limited to the HomePod, HomePod mini, Apple TV
Note that iPads are no longer supported as a home hub on the new Home architecture, meaning you’ll likely want to use an Apple TV
Amazon
Winner:
Compatible devices
Without a doubt, Amazon
Apple falls far behind Amazon in terms of sheer number of compatible products, but its smaller pool is arguably of similar quality. So while you won’t have dozens of smart speakers to choose from, having HomePod and HomePod mini support with HomeKit is a big win. There are also plenty of third-party products that work with HomeKit, including popular items from Nanoleaf, Schlage, and Ecobee. Expect to see this number balloon further as Matter continues to roll out to more products.
For now, however, it’s hard to go wrong with Amazon
Winner:
Ease of use
With intuitive smartphone apps and responsive voice assistants, both HomeKit and
Winner: Tie
Verdict
If you’re glued to the iOS ecosystem and don’t mind a smaller pool of products to choose from, there’s nothing inherently wrong with HomeKit. It’s functional, easy to use, and supports more than enough products to build a robust smart home.
All told,
Editors' Recommendations
- The best smart speakers for 2023
- The best smart blinds for Google Home, Alexa, and HomeKit
- The best smart light bulbs
- Ikea launching 3 new smart home safety gadgets in 2024
- The best smart home devices for 2023