This week, a listener asked how to deploy an iPad on a property with the Home App and other third-party apps. The show discussed setting it up like a company iPad or something (I didn’t understand some of the abbreviations mentioned – MHD or something like that?). It’s much easier than that.
I have two use cases for others having access to my house.
CLEANER, GARDENER AND TRADESPEOPLE
I have a cleaner who comes weekly. Thankfully, she has an iPhone and I have invited her to be a part of my house. She now has access to all of the Homekit stuff in the house on her iPhone without “admin” privileges. Go to the Home App, top right, three dots, home settings, and click “+ invite people”.
The other good thing about this is that because I have invited her to the “home”, she doesn’t set off all of the cameras that automatically trigger and record when I am away. I also don’t get driven mad by notifications when she visits. I also have the same set-up for the gardener and tradespeople, as I have some outdoor cameras. However, it all hinges on third parties having iPhones.
AN IPAD FOR THE HOUSE
From time to time, I leave my house and put it on AirBnb and/or Booking Dot Com. My guests need access to lights and speakers. I also want them to have the Apple TV+ available on a few Sony TVs as well as having access to Apple Music via a decice for playing on speakers in the house. Here’s what I did:
- On my family plan, I set up a fifth account. This is for the “House”. Importantly, I set this as a child’s account, meaning whoever has access to the account (or device) can’t do nefarious things. This was an important point not discussed on the show (I don’t think).
- I put this child’s account on the iPad Mini as the iCloud account and only put apps on it like Home, Apple Music, Podcasts, Weather and third party apps for other appliances.
- I signed into Apple TV+ for guest use on the Sony TVs.
- Guests can also use AirPlay2 for their own audio.
So, they’re my solutions. Both are far from perfect, but they work for me.
Andrew