Classic switches are wonderfully simple: you press them and an action is triggered. They can also be useful in the smart home, as there are situations where voice commands are inappropriate. In the HomeKit area, however, this remains a problem: the selection of such simple devices for the Apple Smart Home ecosystem has always been relatively small – and now the German-American HomeKit pioneer Eve Systems is also taking its popular Eve Button off the market .
Sale, but already hard to get
As the company confirmed to Mac & i, the hardware, which currently costs 50 euros, is currently being sold off – although it is no longer available from the manufacturer and the trade only seems to have small quantities. A successor for the Eve Button will not exist at first. Eve Systems did not want to reveal why the device was discontinued. The manufacturer recently provided a firmware update that cleared up long-known reliability problems that were apparently caused by a bug on Apple’s side.
The Eve Button worked with Bluetooth Low Energy. Eve Systems had not yet switched to the more robust Thread networking technology for the product. The button knew a total of three different triggers to which scenes or individual switching processes could be assigned: single press, double press and long press on the Eve button. However, you often had to practice double and single pressure first – it always helped to hit the middle.
The HomeKit market of buttons
After the end of the Eve Button, there are only a few products of this type on the market. Their advantage is that they work independently of a power supply using a battery (usually a button cell), so that the button can be placed anywhere in the home. Also available is the Fibaro button, which is available in several colors. It is available from 27 euros (from €26.80).
Also still on the market is the HomeKit button by Flic. It doesn’t use Bluetooth and therefore needs its own hub, which even has Ethernet. A set with three buttons currently costs a whopping 175 euros. The advantage: The switching speed is usually fast. Alternatively, technology from the Hue system from Philips can also be used as a HomeKit switch; a base is also required here as a hub. A hub solution also offers Aqara with his mini switch. The Logitech POP Smart Button from 2017 can still be found occasionally in stores – but this too has often been criticized in terms of reliability.
