Eufy has made a brief post explaining the HomeKit delay with the affordable Indoor Cam it launched back in April.
The company promised at the time that it would get HomeKit support, but this has not yet happened. The post says there will be a further delay, but for a very good reason …
The camera will not only get basic HomeKit support, but will also offer HomeKit Secure Video.
As we’ve explained in the past, there’s a somewhat confusing state of affairs when it comes to HomeKit cameras. Basic support means that you can access cameras via Siri, and have things like motion-sensing trigger automations, but there is also a separate feature called HomeKit Secure Video (HSV).
Our development team wants to provide you all with the best possible HomeKit experience and in order to achieve this, we decided to implement the HomeKit Secure Video function. This function will allow users to store videos to iCloud. The application of this function requires additional certification which unfortunately is the result of the delay. :sob:
The full HomeKit experience will officially be available to you before mid-July.
Usually, when a manufacturer just says HomeKit without mentioning HSV, it indicates the camera offers only the basic level of support. But in this case, the Indoor Cam is now set to get HSV support too.
With HSV, all of the people, animal, and vehicle detection is performed locally, on your own iPad, HomePod, or Apple TV, and only encrypted video is sent to Apple’s cloud servers.
If you don’t want to wait until mid-July, you can join parent company Anker’s beta program to get access around the end of this month.
Eufy offers a wide variety of smart home products, including a range of cameras. HomeKit delay is unfortunately not unusual when it comes to smart home products, many of them experiencing lengthy delays before they launch, or before HomeKit support is added via a firmware update some time after launch.
