What is HomeKit?

Using the Apple Home app, you can access all of your home's smart accessories remotely. You need to be familiar with the Apple Home app and have compatible Home smart devices to use this feature.

Here is the official Apple support page for learning all about HomeKit.

Setting Up AutoSleep HomeKit

AutoSleep has added HomeKit support in Version 6.8 which has been a popular request. But like all HomeKit tasks, we need to do some setup work by allowing access and also setting up HomeKit scenes! Below details the steps to setup to enable the AutoSleep HomeKit functions (important: please read all instructions including the section on scenes).


(1) Enable in AutoSleep iPhone App

First step is to enable in the AutoSleep iPhone app by going into Settings, then HomeKit:

(2) Allow Access to Home Data

Turn on the switch called 'Enable HomeKit' to grant AutoSleep permission. It should ask for access to your Home Data like in the screen below. This is a requirement for HomeKit to work. Select 'OK':

Note: if for some reason you accidentally tapped Don't Allow, you can change this by going into your iPhone Settings app, scroll down to AutoSleep and you will see a switch for Home Data to enable.

(3) Enable in AutoSleep Watch App

Next you need to open AutoSleep on the Watch app. On the front menu screen there is a switch at the bottom of the menu called 'HomeKit' (see image below). Turn this on. The purpose of this is to let you can toggle on/off when you are away from home, etc. You will notice 3 little buttons appear below the switch, we will explain these later.

Once fully enabled, a confirmation message should appear on your Watch. Well done! The next part is setting up the HomeKit scenes, so refer to the below section for these important steps.

Using Scenes

Scenes let you control one or more accessories at the same time, like turning off the lights and closing the curtains.

IMPORTANT: In order to use the AutoSleep scenes we need to add these in the Home app, as AutoSleep is not allowed to automatically create these, they need to be setup by the user. Without these scenes setup AutoSleep HomeKit will not work. There are 3 available scenes to setup:

Scene 1: "AS Off"

  • "AS Off" for Lights Off when pressed

  • Lights off is a button on the AutoSleep Watch app, that is optional for users to tap when laying down to go to sleep. When pressed, it will use the AS Off scene if it has been setup (more on setup of scenes below)

  • For example, you may like the "AS Off" scene to turn off your lamp, lock the front door and close the curtains with the "AS Off" scene


Scene 2: "AS Done"

  • "AS Done" is for when Done is pressed on the live sleep tracking screen in AutoSleep

  • The Done button shows when a user uses Lights Off, generally pressed in the morning when you wake up

  • For example, you may like the "AS Done" scene to play some music on your HomePod, open the curtains and start the coffee machine


Scene 3: "AS Loo"

  • "AS Loo" is an option we added for bathroom breaks during the night

  • For example, you wake to go to the toilet and pressing will lightly dim some lights to find your way to the bathroom. Much easier then trying to find the bright torch on your Watch

Setting Up Scenes in the Home App

Open the Apple Home app on your iPhone (it has an icon of a yellow house). Tap the ( + ) icon in the top right corner and select 'Add Scene'.

You will see a page with some suggested scene examples, tap on the bottom 'Custom' option:

This is where we need to create a new custom scene for "AS Off", "AS Done" and "AS Loo". The important thing is having these scene names the exact same, so make sure it is "AS Off" and not "ASOFF". In the example below, you can see I have setup a new scene called "AS Off" with a lamp accessory to turn it off.

Once you have setup all the new scenes in the Home app, you should be able to see them under the room they were linked to, or on the Home screen if setup as favourite. See below the 3 new scenes I have setup that will work with AutoSleep (AS Off; AS Done; AS Loo):

Apple Watch HomeKit Buttons

Once you enable the HomeKit switch on the AutoSleep Watch app, you will notice 3 buttons appear on the Watch menu. These are designed as quick links for each of the scenes we created in the steps above. They will run "AS Off", "AS Loo" and "AS Done" scenes respectively. This makes it really easy to activate the scenes, like running "AS Done" in the morning when you wake up.

Live Sleep Screen

Don't worry, we didn't forget about the live sleep screen for those who use the Lights Off function! There are 2 buttons on the live sleep screen. These are located just below the sleep ring so they don't require much thought to use. They run "AS Loo" and "AS Off" respectively. This is so you can easily run a scene when you take a bathroom break then easily resume darkness once finished.

When you are ready to turn off Lights Off, the Done button at the bottom of the screen is also triggered to run the 'AS Done' scene:

Haptics on HomeKit Actions

Small vibrations (or little bumps) on the Watch, known as haptics, have been added for the HomeKit buttons. When you tap one of the buttons you will feel one haptic straight away on the Watch, then after a brief pause to allow processing time by the Home app, a 2nd haptic indicating completion. Note that the 2nd haptic will not trigger if the AutoSleep screen dims or you exit before the AutoSleep HomeKit scene is processed. This is to stop the Watch sending a haptic completion bump 10 mins later.

For example, I am going to bed so I tap the 'AS Off' button which is set to turn off my bedroom lamp. I instantly feel one haptic on my Watch. The lamp is still on but after waiting 3 seconds I receive another haptic as the lamp switches off. The time delay will depend on your home setup and network.

HomeKit Error Checking

AutoSleep has lots of error checking and associated text when running scenes in the Watch app, as this is helpful especially for new users getting into HomeKit. Remember that AutoSleep is just sending and receiving HomeKit commands, the Home app and its setup is responsible for executing the HomeKit tasks, so any ongoing issues the first point of call will be the Home app. Some of the common ones include:

Scene Not Found

This message will show if you have not setup scenes for AS Off, AS Done or AS Loo in the Apple Home app:

Action in Progress

This message will show if the action is still processing. Generally if patient enough this is to confirm that the action has been submitted successfully and it waiting for Home to run and confirm the action. It may show if you hit the button multiple times while the action is still performing, as there may be a delay depending on the required accessories to run, Home setup and network.

Partially Succeeded

This message will show if only part of the required actions completed successfully. For example, the scene may have had 3 lamps to turn off and it only turned off 2. Usually running the action again can help solve this.

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