The more devices, scenes and automations you add to your home, the more cluttered it can become. To help you stay organized, using smart folders in Controller for HomeKit can be very beneficial. With smart folders, you can apply filters to quickly find relevant devices, scenes, and automations.
On the home screen of the Apple Home app, you’ve probably already noticed the four filters: “Climate,” “Lights,” “Security,” and “Speakers & TVs”. Tapping on any of these filters will display only the corresponding devices. Smart folders in Controller for HomeKit work similarly, but you have the flexibility to create folders tailored to your needs, for devices, scenes and automations.
Accessories
To create a smart folder for your devices, navigate to the devices overview in Controller for HomeKit. Then, you can create a new smart folder by tapping the plus icon in the upper right corner.
Here, start by giving the folder a name that will appear in your devices overview.
Next, you have the option to filter devices by name, room, service type, or characteristic type. The service type is comparable to the device category, while the characteristic type includes specific properties of a device.
Note: When filtering by characteristic type, the current value is displayed in the overview.
For instance, if we want to quickly see which motion detectors have been triggered in our “HomeDevices Headquarter,” we filter by room “HomeDevices Headquarter” and select “Motion Detected” under characteristic type.
Once we activate the filter, we will only see the current status of motion detectors in the “HomeDevices Headquarter.”
Scenes
Smart scene folders resemble smart device folders significantly. They offer the same filtering options, but of course scenes that match the filter criteria are displayed at the end.
Let’s create an example to quickly find all scenes that control lights in our “HomeDevices Headquarter”. To do this, we create a new smart folder in the scenes overview by tapping the plus icon in the upper right corner and providing a descriptive name.
We select “HomeDevices Headquarter” as the room and set the service type to “Lightbulb.”
By activating the filter, we immediately see which scenes control the lights in our “HomeDevices Headquarter.”
Automations
Smart folders can also be created for automations. However, other filter options are available here. In addition to names and rooms, which are also available for devices and scenes, you can filter by status (Active / Inactive), starter events, conditions, and actions.
Note: If you include multiple start events, conditions, or actions, all filter criteria must be met.
Let’s look at this again with an example. We want to quickly see which automations are responsible for controlling the lights in our “HomeDevices Headquarter”. To achieve this, we create a new smart folder under automations by tapping the plus icon in the upper right corner and naming it appropriately.
We once again set the room as “HomeDevices Headquarter”. To only display active automations, we select the status “Active”. As a final filter, we add an action: We choose the “Service Type” and then “Lightbulb”.
Once we activate the filter, we see all the automations that control our lights in the “HomeDevices Headquarter”.
Note: Automations created without scenes through Apple Home cannot be considered with an action filter. Apple does not provide developers access to this.
Additional Examples
Battery Status of Devices
To get an overview of your devices’ current battery status, you can create a smart folder based on battery status.
Filtering Devices by Room
If you want the ability to select individual rooms within the device overview, you can easily create corresponding filters.
Sunset-Based Automations
If you want to see which automations are triggered based on sunset, you can create a smart folder in the automations overview that filters by the start event “Sunset.”
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