Apple HomeKit HMCharacteristics

Question

I'm currently working on a quite important study project. I'm working on the topic of home automation. Therefore I would like to implement the HomeKit framework to control action modules.

My App is already able to search for Homes, Rooms, Accessories, Services and Characteristics. But I don't know how to properly handle all of the different characteristic types. Is there a way to get the characteristic type as real string (for example: HMCharacteristicTypePowerState).

I really don't know how to present the user just those characteristics that matter.

I would appreciate if someone could drop me a hint ;)

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 13:00

1

HMCharacteristic has a characteristicType property, which you can compare to the constants.

if characteristic.characteristicType == HMCharacteristicTypePowerState {
    // do something
}

Reference

answered Mar 03 '16 at 13:00

Mark

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Yeah I worked it out that way to. But for some reason there are still Characteristics that aren't defined by apple, that I can't access that way. For example the current power draw of an power outlet. – A. Osterthun Mar 07 '16 at 14:59
So you're saying the characteristic has a type not defined by any of those constants? Is it an unofficial HomeKit accessory? What is the value of `characteristicType` for those characteristics? – Mark Mar 10 '16 at 17:40
Just in case anyone is doing this with ObjectiveC, you'll need to use isEqualToString, not ==. – hanno Jan 10 '21 at 01:56

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 06 '16 at 13:56

0

HMCharacteristic has a localizedDescription property which returns a readable string, but if you want to select only certain characteristics it is better to use the the HMCharacteristicsType constants as suggested by Mark

answered Mar 06 '16 at 13:56

Christian R

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score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 07 '16 at 12:33

-1

if characteristic.characteristicType isEqualToString: HMCharacteristicTypePowerState {
    // do something
}

answered Mar 07 '16 at 12:33

SRI

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Apple HomeKit HMCharacteristics

3 Answers3