CES 2022: Eve Launches HomeKit-Compatible Outdoor Cam and MotionBlinds

At this point in the game, is there still a reason that *most* HomeKit enabled devices are far more expensive than alternatives?

A better way to say it is that prices vs value for IoT are all over the place. HomeKit is a reasonable (but imperfect) indication of quality, as is Eve. For example
- Nanoleaf bulbs are HomeKit (and Thread-enabled) and very reasonably priced
- Eve Button is a lousy product (but most Eve stuff is pretty good)

IoT stuff is extremely variable, so you're paying (somewhat... see above) for quality.
Bad stuff (eg a lot of the China no-name brands, even apart from privacy issues) uses a custom app (who wants ten of those on their phone?), doesn't report low batteries, has painful set-up, never updates firmware, etc.
Some cheap stuff is OK. Wyze for example are very good about firmware updates, but you still have
- no integration with the rest of the world, everything has to go through the Wyze app
- everything goes through Wyze servers (which fail a lot more frequently than they should, and sometimes internet fgails on your side...)
- random needing to restart/reboot once a month.

But Hue is expensive and, IMHO, unjustified. It's (barely) HomeKit compliant, a bad iOS neighbor, and fails in weird irritating ways. Ikea is cheap (like Wyze you can bridge it to HomeKit through HomeBridge) but more irritating to work with than Wyze because of stupid zigbee functionality which just doesn't match anything else in your compute environment (every time something goes wrong I have to spend 20 minutes reminding myself of sigbee and ikea conventions).

Bottom line is
- everything sucks way more than it should BUT
- HomeKit native (and Eve) as brands are *reasonable* heuristics for quality (meaning works well, is updated, doesn't fail randomly, etc).


For cameras in particular, what you will find is the thing you care most about is LATENCY -- how fast
- from event to a notification on your phone OR
- from tapping on your phone to seeing live video

Ring is utterly unacceptable in this respect. Don't even waste your time.
Blink is bad. They do have an excuse that they are about *extremely* low power, but if that doesn't matter to you, also not acceptable.
Wyze is not great; acceptable but only given the super-low price.

I wish reviews weighted this much higher. I'd like to know the latency for all the new high-end cameras (including this Eve model).

For blinds, as long as it works your main concern will become "how easy is it to pop out the battery or otherwise recharge it". Just visually looking at those blinds I don't see where the battery sits. Which may mean something as innocuous as "there's a USB charging port behind the blind, and you just need a long USB cable". Or it may mean "trying to pop out the battery is a serious fight, with you perched on a precarious ladder and unable to see anything you are doing...''
Ikea blind batteries are very easily popped and put back in. Full marks.
MySmartBlinds allow solar charging (which works well for some locations, though is hell if you need to rewire it...); they can also be topped up via USB at a location that's not trivial to find but not terrible to get at (not great either).

IP55 and 1080p? Eve, have you been under a rock for the past 5 years?

For the love of god someone needs to come out with a camera with the hardware of the NEST IQ 4K outdoor cam (but actually waterproof) with no subscription (or very affordable) and HKSV support. Oh and an app that isn’t ?

What's the pricing on the shades?

Quick glance at the website seems to be around $500, with a sale price right now of around $300.

Per shade.

Too rich for my blood.

I have the Lutron / Serena motion blinds and they are amazing. I’m glad to see more companies getting involved to make sure competition and innovation continues.

HomeKit is becoming a massive thing for security. I won’t be surprised if more companies join Apple.

Quick glance at the website seems to be around $500, with a sale price right now of around $300.

Per shade.

Too rich for my blood.

Yikes. Me too. I’m not that lazy.