Free, open-source Scenecuts application from Seattle developer Nick Hayward is a great little utility that lets you bypass Apple's awesome Home app and access your smart devices at home and trigger HomeKit scenes directly via the macOS menu bar.

Just click the Scenecuts icon in the menu bar to display a drop-down menu that contains all the HomeKit scenes you've created in the Apple Home app. The application is widely configurable: you can edit this drop-down menu, add or remove individual HomeKit scenes from it, and more.

This allows you to turn off all the scenes you don't need to quickly locate the ones you use most often. In the latest update, the app added support for default HomeKit scenes from the menu bar via the Apple Symbols SF font, virtually turning HomeKit scenes into individual menu bar items (similar to how you can drag items from the Control Center to the bar of the menu.

John Voorhees, writing at MacStories:

You can add an icon to any of the scenes you add to the menu bar using Apple's SF symbols. I immediately added separate items from the menu bar for the space heater in my office and the settings for the top lights I use to shoot the products, as these are two scenes I want to shoot regularly from my desk. Using SF symbols is a great way to choose something meaningful and memorable for triggering scenes.

Thanks to the app's global shortcuts, you can enable scenes without clicking the macOS menu bar (customize these useful shortcuts to your liking in Scenecuts settings). Hayward notes that Scenecuts currently only supports the main house in the Home app. In addition, the support application must be running for Scenecuts to work.

Scenecuts requires macOS 11.0 Big Sur or later.

Download free MacOS Scenecuts from the App Store.