New holiday Hue lights, Apple TV 4K review, & more

HomeKit Insider

In a busy episode of the Homekit Insider podcast, your host discusses the new Hue string lights, reviews the Apple TV 4K, and answers some listener questions.

In smart home news, Level has responded to criticism on how easy its lock can be picked, essentially confirming our sentiments in a previous episode. The deadbolt uses a common cylinder design and Level is exploring keyless options in the future to mitigate any picking issues.

Furthermore, it was revealed that the Level Lock has a secret Thread radio and will be updated to support Thread and Matter in a future update.

Before the holidays, Signify had one more announcement ready to go with its new Festavia string lights. These smart lights are perfect for decorating for the holidays. We discuss the new lights and compare them to the existing Twinkly options.

Related to Hue, when the Hue bridge gets updated to support Matter, it will automatically add any other non-Hue lights to HomeKit. When other lights are paired with the Hue bridge, like those from Ikea, they previously would not show natively in HomeKit.

Finally, Nanoleaf is introducing a right-angle connector for its Lines series. They can be used in tandem with the 60-degree adapters to create all new designs.

In this episode we also review the updated Apple TV 4K and the Belkin MagSafe car charger.

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