Siri on third-party HomeKit devices? Yes, but...

Here is a new feature announced during the WWDC 2021 keynote: Siri will be usable onother devices than those marked with the apple soon. While we could have seen the arrival of Apple's intelligent assistant on third-party HomeKit products, such as connected speakers or any other kind of central device in a home automation environment, in complete independence, in reality , a limitation will have to be taken into account.

HomePod ou HomePod mini indispensable

The connected home specialist Ecobee confirmed this recently. Indeed, when announcing its SmartThermostat and Siri support, Ecobee clearly indicated that to benefit from Apple's voice assistant on its product, the user musthas a HomePod or HomePod mini nearby.

Later this year, customers with a new or existing ecobee SmartThermostat with voice control and an Apple HomePod or HomePod mini can enable Siri and activate its help with a simple “Hey Siri”.

Accompanied by one of two Apple speakers, the Ecobee Thermostat can then respond to “Hey Siri” requests.

The competition is still ahead

Is this progress? Personally, I am very disappointed by this limitation. It might have made more sense for an Apple TV or an iPad, two products serving as HomeKit centralizers - or “hubs” (just like the HomePod or the HomePod mini), to also be present in the list of devices that can be used to decentralize Siri to a third-party accessory.

Obviously, the most ideal solution for the user would have been todon't need any of these Apple productsaround the house, to use Siri on third-party accessories.

We are therefore still far from the integration of an Alexa on Bose products for example, or even a Google Assistant on Sonos speakers.