Hands on with tvOS 18 beta, MagSafe travel chargers, & new HomePod

On this episode of the HomeKit Insider Podcast, we hit the latest drops in the smart home space, including new sensors and an updated HomePod as well as cover the changes in tvOS 18.

This week was full of smart home news and several new product launches. Before getting into the week's news, we recapped some of our relevant coverage.

We walked through our roundup of the best MagSafe travel chargers. There were 10 featured chargers that varied in features, but all offered up to 15W of charging to iPhone.

A video also went live that highlighted every new feature coming to Apple TV in tvOS 18. It's a comprehensive video that touches on everything from InSight to accessibility settings.

As far as new releases go, we saw Apple update the HomePod mini in a new Midnight color. Nothing else changed, though.

Lutron released its new Caseta Casa Dimmer ELV+, which is useful for low-voltage insulations, such as under cabinet lights that don't typically work with regular dimmers.

Eve launched an updated version of the Eve Weather that comes with Matter enabled out of the box — no update required. The Apple Home version is still available, too.

Finally, Onvis finally updated its CS1 sensor. The CS2 is a contact sensor that also has a built-in alarm system that will trigger when you are not home.

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1 Comment

Djacobs 4 comments · 4 Years

About 4 months ago

Appreciate the info on TVos 18. I installed the first developer Beta to simply try out the ultra widescreen support. It has been a complete disaster, it automatically becomes the HomeHub, because it is the newest OS, and everything in my house quits responding. I have to unplug it and brick it, since there is downgrade path. Have you experienced any of these issues since upgrading to the public beta? Also, never could find any support in the system for the ultra-wide formats. I was hoping your review of the beta would include some info on this, and there wasn't any, and I can not find anything about it anywhere online!