Eufy made a short post explaining the delay HomeKit with handy camera inside, launched in April.
The company promised at the time that it would receive HomeKit support, but this has not happened yet. The post says it will be another delay, but for a very good reason ...
The camera will not only receive basic HomeKit support, but will also offer HomeKit Secure Video.
We just wanted to clarify a few things about the HomeKit compatibility issue. First of all, we want to apologize for the delay you are facing. We understand your frustration and appreciate your patience.
Our development team wants to give you all the best possible HomeKit experience and to achieve this, we have decided to implement the HomeKit Secure Video function. This feature will allow users to store videos in iCloud. Applying this feature requires additional certification, which is unfortunately the result of the delay. :sigh:
The full HomeKit experience will be officially available to you before mid-July.
As I explained in the past, there is a somewhat confusing state when it comes to HomeKit cameras. Basic support means you can access the cameras via Siri and have things like motion automation that detect movement, but there's also a separate feature called HomeKit Secure Video (HSV).
HomeKit Secure Video is designed to address the main security weakness with most smart cameras today. To do things like detect people and recognize faces, most cameras upload their video to the cloud and perform the analysis there. This means that the unencrypted video is stored on someone else's server, a tasty target for hackers.
With HSV, all people, animals and vehicle detection are done locally, on your own iPad, HomePod or Apple TV and only encrypted videos are sent to Apple's cloud servers.
Usually, when a manufacturer only says HomeKit without mentioning HSV, it indicates that the camera only offers the basic level of support. But in this case, the Inner Room is now set to get HSV support as well.
If you don't want to wait until mid-July, you can join the parent company's Anker beta program for access later this month.
Eufy offers a wide variety of smart home products, including a range of cameras. Unfortunately, HomeKit delays are not uncommon when it comes to smart home products, with many of them experiencing long delays before launch or before launching HomeKit support through a firmware update some time after launch.
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