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Hunter Douglas shades review, new Ikea speakers, and a new door lock on HomeKit Insider

On this week's HomeKit Insider podcast, your hosts review Hunter Douglas's PowerView HomeKit-connected shades, discuss the new Ikea and Sonos collaboration, and talk about Level's new smart lock.

The news was relatively light this week in the world of HomeKit, although two new products debuted. Ikea and Sonos continued their work together on the Symfonisk speaker line with a new wall-mounted picture frame-like speaker. Level also debuted a new smart lock that it is billing as the smallest smart lock available.

Andrew spends some time discussing the Hunter Douglas PowerView shades and how they integrate with HomeKit. We've talked about the Hunter Douglas Shades in the past — but after extended use, we're ready for our full review.

Stephen and Andrew also lamented recent issues plaguing their HomePods including non-responsiveness and confirmation demanded on iOS devices for personal requests.

From the audience

In recent weeks, we've had a few listeners write in with overheating issues on their Logitech Circle View doorbell. JP wrote in this week saying in his case, it was a power supply issue. He swapped his power supply from an 8V system to a 16V system and it solved some of the issues.

Ron wrote in this week asking what is the best solution to cast audio directly from his turntable to his Sonos system or another AirPlay 2 device. Unfortunately, while there are some AirPlay transmitters, there are no AirPlay 2 models available. The most cost-effective solution may be to connect the turntable to an old iPhone or iPod Touch and use that as the transmitter for AirPlay.

The turntable can be connected with a Buddy Line audio adapter and the free AirChord app can transmit the audio to any AirPlay speakers.

Colin asked us if there was any HomeKit-compatible keypad that could connect to their existing HomeKit door lock. Apple doesn't have a HomeKit keypad category — though perhaps it should — so the only option is to choose a HomeKit door lock that has their own keypad option, such as August.

Our last inquiry from the week came from Christofer who asked for assistance in creating a shortcut that would run whenever he leaves the house and check to be sure all his doors and windows are closed and then sends him a notification with the statuses.

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