Robot Vacuums Can Finally Hang Out in the iOS 18.4 Home App
Credit: Smart Home Centre
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A more intelligent Siri isn’t the only iOS 18 feature that we’ve still been waiting on. While it’s arguably a pretty low-profile addition for many folks, Apple also promised support for robot vacuums would be coming in late 2024.
In November, it quietly updated that timeline to “early 2025.” In January, iOS 18.3 came and went with no sign of the feature, but the good news is that it appears to have finally landed in the first iOS 18.4 beta — and hopefully it will be there to stay for the final release.
Robot vacuums that actually support HomeKit are non-existent right now, but since Apple embraced the Matter standard in 2022’s iOS 16 release, there’s already a small collection of robovacs that will work with Apple’s Home app that way.
Jonathan at Smart Home Center gave this a shot after the first iOS 18.4 developer beta arrived last week and found he could pair up the Matter-compatible SwitchBot S10 and have it appear in Apple Home.
It’s a slightly convoluted process that requires generating a Matter pairing code from the SwitchBot S10 app, where it’s tagged as a “beta” feature right now, and then using that to add the accessory in the Home app. Thankfully, you should only need to do that once, and it looks like it may be worth it as Apple’s implementation is pretty complete.
The robot vacuum appears in the Home app under an “Other” category, but otherwise looks like any other device tile, complete with an appropriate icon. From there, users can start or stop a cleaning session (presumably just by tapping on the button), change the cleaning mode between “Vacuum” and “Vacuum and Mop” and tell the vacuum to either stop cleaning (“Quit”), or use Quick, Deep Clean, or Automatic modes.
Robot vacuums can also be included in scenes and automations. So, for instance, you could have your SwitchBot start cleaning the floors when you call out the “Good Night” scene before going to bed, or have an automation that triggers it when you head out the front door in the morning.
Like other Apple Home devices, robot vacuums can also be controlled using some basic Siri commands. However, you’ll need to reach for the manufacturer’s app if you want to use any advanced features.
During their testing, the folks at Smart Home Center found the SwitchBot S10 wasn’t the most responsive, and while there’s a “Return to Dock” option in the Home app, it didn’t work. To be fair, this is the first iOS 18.4 developer beta, plus SwitchBot’s Matter support is also relatively new and also still in beta. The company only recently embraced direct Matter connectivity, abandoning the kludgier method that used a SwitchBot hub to bridge the gap.
As shared by The Verge, there are only about a dozen robot vacuums that support Matter right now, and those are confined to only five manufacturers. SwitchBot is by far the most prolific of these, while popular robovac maker iRobot only recently joined the club with its Roomba Combo 10 Max, the only Roomba that supports Matter so far.
With Matter promising interoperability across all major smart home platforms, it’s unlikely we’ll see any robot vacuums embrace HomeKit directly. Thankfully, that shouldn’t matter (no pun intended) as long as they get the open standard home automation protocol working properly.
