Elgato Shifting to Focus 'Exclusively' on Line of Eve HomeKit Devices

This is the same company that got famous from their "EyeTV" product, a cable tuner box that you could use to watch live TV via FireWire on your Mac. Any company participating in the Apple landscape with premium products needs to evolve and HomeKit focus makes more sense.

This is the same company that got famous from their "EyeTV" product, a cable tuner box that you could use to watch live TV via FireWire on your Mac. Any company participating in the Apple landscape with premium products needs to evolve and HomeKit focus makes more sense.

I still have my original EyeTV, which actually used USB 1 and MPEG1. Everyone was like "why not firewire/Mpeg4" at the time, but it worked alright.

"Our gaming business has been wildly successful, and that success is inextricably linked to the Elgato brand."

"…so we totally thought it makes sense to sell off this successful division."

Business logic.

This is the same company that got famous from their "EyeTV" product, …

…which was another successful product line until they decided to sell it off to Geniatech, who ran the brand into the ground.

I have several Eve HomeKit devices and they all have one thing in common — none of them work very well.

They have ongoing connectivity issues.

Unless they improve performance, I won’t be buying any more.

I bought my first ElGato product over a decade ago along with the first generation AppleTV when I cut the cord: the EyeTV. It was a tv tuner made to look like an AppleTV that you plugged into your Mac to watch and record live tv and send the tv shows to your AppleTV. It really allowed me to go all in without cable.



When TV shows appeared on iTunes for AppleTV, it became more convenient to just buy seasons of my favourite shows and download my favourite video podcasts and I stopped using the EyeTV.

I never thought that I’d be buying dozens of more ElGato products as I outfit my home for HomeKit. They’ve found a niche that they’re really good at. I’m on board and will continue buying ElGato products for my smart home.

It's good that they are because it seems like many companies don't care. Hopefully Corsair takes care of these other products like Weber did with the iGrill. I've actually been eyeing their higher-end game capture cards that do real-time broadcast as a means to connect my Xbox to an iMac as a display if I end up upgrading to that instead of the Mac Pro in the next year. I have an older model that I used for a while when I used to produce gaming content and it was a good product.

I hope that at some point they expand their weather product to a fully fledged station. It would be neat to be able to ask Siri about current conditions outside my house, and tie-in HomeKit actions. For instance, if the rain collector hasn't detected enough rain then it will calculate how long it should run the sprinkler system to compensate. It can also factor in how much water to use based on temperature, humidity, and even evaporation rates caused by higher wind speeds. I imagine there are other things you could hook into data like this that I haven't thought of yet, but mostly I want it because I'm a weather geek. Netatmo makes a personal weather station with accessories that would suit my needs if they added HomeKit, though I wonder if Siri Shortcuts in iOS 12 would be able to do what I need if they can add support for it.

I'd also like to see them make an alarm system to hook into all of their sensors. Ring's new alarm system is coming out on July 4th but as far as I can tell it doesn't support HomeKit. They've been promising support for my doorbell and floodlight for ages so who knows. They're also owned by Amazon now which makes me hesitant, but I don't think these interior products have microphones or cameras so I think I'm good? I might hold off on early bugs, check out reviews, and get it during a holiday sale. The $10/mo service for 24/7 home monitoring with LTE backup plus DVR for all of my cameras is really tempting. I already pay $6/mo for both cameras now so it's a great deal. But I trust Elgato more.

I want to know what happened to the Eve Extend. The current state of Bluetooth LE devices limits usability for those with large homes. Short of forking out hundreds of dollars for additional Apple TVs and running them headless in closets, I have no way to communicate with my Schlage locks via HomeKit.

This is essentially what I've had to do. I have 2 ATV 4Ks, in use with TVs (1 in basement, 1 on main floor) and a 3rd headless ATV 4th gen (non-4K) in a closet in a basement bedroom near the back of the house so my Schlage locks on the front and back of the house have sufficient BT LE proximity. I also have an August lock on my garage door - it has both WiFi and BT but is too far away for BT, so I put an old 4th gen. Airport Base Station in the garage in wireless extend mode.

Yes, it's some extra dollars - but everything works amazingly smooth.

…which was another successful product line until they decided to sell it off to Geniatech, who ran the brand in the ground.

Rip eyeTV. Geniatech is horrible and totally broke the software. I wish I could find the old version before Geniatech.

With Xiaomi Aqara entering this market by year end, Elgato needs to step up their game because their (almost all HomeKit ones) prices are way high...

I have a few Elgato products and they are really well built and features are nice. But when xiaomi will come with HomeKit outlets at half price it will be interesting.

I love competition!

I want to know what happened to the Eve Extend. The current state of Bluetooth LE devices limits usability for those with large homes. Short of forking out hundreds of dollars for additional Apple TVs and running them headless in closets, I have no way to communicate with my Schlage locks via HomeKit.