Hive HomeKit support via Siri shortcuts
Hive Home has now been around for a few years starting with its Hive heating product and now expanded to lights, switches and smart cameras. But the most requested feature is Hive HomeKit support with its users, but Hive has remained silent on integration since 2016.
Whilst I have been a happy user of Hive heating and water smart controls, the lack of HomeKit support for Hive has been one of the biggest reasons I have not invested further into the Hive smart home products as my smart home is powered by HomeKit, but recently I have discovered Siri Shortcuts that feature in iOS12 and bring near HomeKit support for Hive Home products.
When will Hive support HomeKit?
Before we get into the Siri shortcuts for Hive, let me give my view on Hive Home support. Personally, I don’t think we will see HomeKit support for Hive soon and this is because of the link with Alexa and the fact that Hive seems to create its smart home ecosystem via the Hive Hub 360.
So because of the above reasons, it would seem that Hive has a roadmap that takes them down a path which could conflict with bringing HomeKit to the Hive products.
If you prefer to watch a video tutorial, you can watch the one below
Hive Siri shortcuts
So whilst we wait for HomeKit support on Hive, here is 4 Siri shortcuts that bring near HomeKit support.
I would like to give credit to the creator Matthew Johns, he’s a legend for creating these Hive Siri shortcuts and if I ever meet him, I will buy him a pint.
Before we begin, you need the following
- Hive Home product connected to a Hub – Light or heating product.
- Network and internet connection
- iOS device running iOS 12 or above
- Siri shortcuts app installed
- Your username and password for Hive.
To set up the Siri shortcuts, all you need to do is;
- Install Siri shortcuts from the App Store – Download
- Download the Siri shortcut for each Hive automation (Link below each description)
- input your Hive username
- Input your Hive password
Hive Home Siri shortcut for boosting heating
This Siri shortcut will allow you to boost your heating for one hour via your iOS device either with a quick tap of a button or via Siri using your voice. This is useful if you want to give your home a quick heating boost.
Hive Home Siri shortcut for boosting water
Have you ever come home and discovered that all your hot water has gone? Well using this Siri shortcut you can boost your Hot water either with your voice via Siri or a tap of a button.
Hive Home Siri shortcut for triggering lights
If you are a user of Philips Hue lights then you will know how easy it is to use your voice to turn on lights in your Home. With this Siri shortcut you can get Hive in on the action whilst we wait for HomeKit.
Hive Home Siri shortcut for temperature level
If you use a HomeKit supported smart heating product, then you will be familiar will using Siri to find out what the temperature of your home is. With this Siri shortcut, you can ask Siri the temperature in your Hive Home.
Adding a Siri Voice Command to a Shortcut
The tutorial would not be complete without showing you how to add a Siri voice command to each of these Siri shortcuts for Hive Home.
- In your shortcuts library, tap on the 3 little circles at the top right of the shortcut you want to edit.
- When in the edit screen, tap on the small ‘sliders’ icon at the top right of the screen (next to the share icon).
- A settings window should appear, tap on ‘Add to Siri’.
- Press on the red record button then dictate your command. Siri will offer a suggestion but you’re free to say whatever you like.
- Tap ‘Done’ when you’re happy, and your command is saved.
So whilst we wait for HomeKit support on Hive, I hope these Siri shortcuts fill the gap and if you have any more that you use, then leave them in the comments section below. Don’t forget to subscribe to be first to find out when more information emerges. If you have a question or a comment, then leave it below. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
Originally posted on activejr.com
There’s no links at all
Article has been fixed, wrong version published
Here are a few more that people might find useful:
Toggle the brightness of a light: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/c13d5aa75fd84830992af752cbb18739
Boost Heat with verbal confirmation (handy if using a HomePod)
https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/c170c2f41fb34e3b83f9f8f034a0871c
Toggle Light or Plug with verbal confirmation
https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/0b60e44ec0b24db0b67268da52b8eda2
Amazing Matthew for supplying the additional Siri Shortcuts!
This is brilliant, although my homepod won’t do anything, am I doing something wrong ?
A brief note of advice when you’re picking a Siri command for shortcuts. If you pick a word that Siri has already associated with Homekit, like “kitchen’ or “bathroom”, then Siri will not run your selected shortcut. It tries to use Homekit and then tells you that it can’t.
So pick command words like “banana” and you’ll have no trouble.
Good tip. I can see why it would cause a problem, but this sounds more like something apple needs to find to stop the conflict
Would it take much altering to also get the water on and heating on shortcuts to water off and heating off. Thanks.
Seems to ask for a url when running the shortcut. Thanks for any help I must be making some thing.
The urls should already be in the shortcut
Where do you input both Hive username and Password
When you first download the shortcut you will be asked to enter the username and password. Try removing the shortcut and starting again
Thanks, skipped that as downloaded to use later.
You could also edit by clicking on the 3 dots of the shortcut and then entering your username in the first text box and then password in the 2nd text box
I’d like to learn more about how to achieve these scripts. I’d especially like to be able to toggle a group of lights in the Hive ecosystem. Can anyone direct me to learning resources for shortcuts scripting and Hive commands
I can’t get the light control to work. I have successfully set up the Boost Heating and Get Temperature shortcuts. The lights shortcut runs and returns a tick but the light is not toggled on or off.
I can also get the dim lights shortcut to work
Seems to be working ok for me
It all works well for me now, I’ve even modified the boost heating to stop heating so Siri via my phone, iPad or HomePod turns the heating on or off and tells me the tempature, next item on my smart home setup is ikea tradfri plugs (the new ones) and hub, wish me luck lol
Hi Paul, hold fire on the plugs if you are wanting HomeKit support. It has been delayed
Hi how did you do this please I tried but when i ran it it says “I can’t do that Dave” but it does actually turn it off. So not quite sure where I’ve gone wrong. Any help or the actual shortcut would be brill – thanks Phil
Matthew Johns built these, so hopefully he is visiting the site to see them.
Thanks Jon, will hold tight ??
Hi, did you mange to get the light toggle working? I seem to have the same problem
You have to name the light exactly as it’s named in hive
Quick question can anyone get groups of lights to work. On Hive I have set all my lights as ‘House lights’ this does not work on the shortcut.
Hi, is there a shortcut that could turn off the heating please?
Is it possible to have the heating on indefinitely until i turn it off rather than just for 1 hour. I have managed to code it so I can turn it off using shortcuts
Not that I have found. Would you share the other shortcuts and you will get full credit for them?
This one should toggle groups of lights (I only have one bulb in my current setup)
https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/e6916e83ae6448b789e933f82b5fd82a
Thanks Matthew. I will update the article shortly.
And a shortcut to activate a Hive “quick action”
https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/0966182fb52640c8a2ab90ebc7c019f9
Another good one Matthew. Would you be interested in writing some for other smart home products?
Great article and lots of information.
I have been trying to figure out if it is possible to activate/deactivate a normal action and not a Quick Action.
Ultimately, I would like to run a shortcut to notify me when one of my sensors is triggered. Currently, I have to use the app to turn all my sensor actions on or off every time but you can’t add sensors to Quick Actions and you can’t group sensors so it’s labourious!
I have tried the same thing, but had no luck so far
Update: Physical (c.£30) buttons for shortcuts.
I’ve recently discovered that flic buttons https://flic.io can activate iOS Shortcuts.
You do this by giving the flic app (on your iPhone or iPad) the instruction of:
New Action/Phone Control/Safari (open a website)
and then giving the URL
shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=Your%20shortcut%20name
e.g.
shortcuts://run-shortcut?name=Quick%20Action
The first time that this is run the app asks if it’s OK to open Shortcuts but after that it’s just click and go!
Happy to have a go at other smart home products but this is just a hobby for me!
Hi everyone, just tried this but cant get the shortcut to activate any of my Hive actions.I have logged in as advised but nothing happens with the Hive at home apart from the shortcut going through its sequence. Any advice please
where is the 8 digit key code to be found
I can’t find the article now. But read somewhere B Gas are all but finished with Apple support. It’s due in the next few weeks and will be waiting on Apple to approve. Hope thats true.
Not seen anything of it, but it will be good news for customers if true
We deleted a command by mistake set it back up and now Siri says sorry there was a problem with the app and it’s saying to rename it ??
What happens when you rename it?
Hi.
The boost hot water appears to have stopped working “error passing URL”. I don’t know if jive have changed something their side. Any ideas?
Great shortcuts BTW !!