Elgato Eve Button with Apple HomeKit REVIEW
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As we continue to move forward into the future, there are more and more ‘smart’ products being developed to make life easier at home. If you are a follower of MacSources, you will know that I have quite a few smart lighting products in my home. It started with Philips Hue bulbs and strips, but I eventually branched out into LIFX strips, Caseta Wireless by Lutron, and Sylvania bulbs and strips as well. In addition to smart lights, I also have a connected thermostat (ecobee 3), environment sensors like First Alert Onelink, and a smart deadbolt from Schlage connected to my home WiFi. I do use Apple’s Home App frequently to control them all, but sometimes it’s nice to have the option to tap something tactile rather than calling out to our various voice assistants to control certain aspects of my smart home. The Eve Button is a connected home remote that works together with Apple HomeKit to give you more tactile control over your smart home devices.
User Experience
The set up of the button is very, very easy. It comes with a preinstalled coin battery. To activate the button you tap the button once. You can customize the button by adding the rubber feet (self-adhesive) and the labels. You don’t have to add the labels but it’s a nice way to personalize the button. Once you activate the button, you will want to download the app by visiting the iOS App Store. If you have other Eve products, then you will just add an accessory by visiting Settings and then tapping on the ‘+’ sign. The app should automatically detect the button and will then ask for the HomeKit code located on the back of the user guide or the bottom of the button.
After the button is connected to your home network, you will be able to program the button with smart home scenes from HomeKit. There are three different controls — one click, two clicks, or one long press. You can assign a different scene to each action. If you don’t have a scene set up that you want to be programmed, you can make a new one right from the Eve app.
In my case, I had a really good application for the button in my living room. We recently upgraded our home entertainment system to include a 75-inch 4K television. The problem we were faced with when we set it up was that we were getting a horrible glare from three lights in our ceiling fan and our two table lamps. So, I set up the button for optimum television viewing lighting. With one click of the button, the three ceiling fan lights turn off and the two table lamps dim to 40% brightness. With two clicks, all the lights turn up to 100%. With a long press, all the lights in the living room turn off. The idea behind this type of programming is to be a non-intrusive as possible with smart home commands.
So far, the Eve Button has worked pretty well. I’ve had no problem with the single click operation or the long press, but when it comes to the double click program, the button is a little sluggish. I would say it’s work 60% of the times I’ve tried the double click function and I don’t have a good reason why it wouldn’t be working.
Conclusions
The Eve Button is a really nice addition to my smart home accessories. It gives me the option to control my smart lighting with a simple button press instead of wading through a sea of menus on my phone or calling out to a voice assistant in the middle of a TV show.
For more information, visit elgato.com/eve-button.
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Originally published at macsources.com on March 26, 2018.
