Home Widget update puts HomeKit cameras, more on your Home screen

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Homewidget Promo Art
Homewidget Promo Art (Image credit: Clement Marty)

What you need to know

  • Home Widget has a new update available for download.
  • The new update adds support for HomeKit cameras and more.

A new Home Widget update adds to an already popular app by giving users the chance to put their HomeKit cameras and more right onto their Home screen.

I've written about Home Widget before but this latest update takes things a step further by adding new support for HomeKit cameras. Now you can see a live stream or snapshot preview of your cameras by tapping one widget.

Alongside the addition of new camera support, Home Widget just gained support for colored lights as well as battery level indicators for things like sensors. And there's still more! A quick rundown of some of the bigger changes in Home Widget version 1.2.0 include:

  • Support for HomeKit Cameras: you can now get a live stream or a snapshot preview of all your cameras just by tapping a button from your widgets.
  • Lights color support: Last version brought dimmers, now you can go further by adjusting not only brightness level but also lights color directly from your Home Screen.
  • Battery level sensors: You can now monitor your device battery levels by using the new available sensors.
  • Thermostats & Air Conditionner temperature sensors: Use your thermostats, valves and air-conditionner devices as temperature sensors to monitor temperature all over the home.
  • Panel background: Each panel can now be personalized using gradients, solid colors & custom images all with transparency and blur effect over your Home Screen.

All of that and more is available via the App Store now. Those who already have Home Widget installed can get the update via the usual mechanism. Everyone else can download the app afresh for free with in-app purchases available.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.