HomeKit Weekly: Signals for HomeKit lets you connect with your family without shouting

One of the main features of the HomePod mini is the new intercom system where you can send messages to different rooms in the house. The intercom will work on HomePods, as well as iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Although I can't wait to try the intercom system, as a father of three I need less noise in our house so I really like using Signals for HomeKit.

HomeKit Weekly is a series devoted to smart home accessories, automation tips and tricks, and everything related to Apple's smart home framework.

Signals for HomeKit lets you notify your family when it's dinner time, bedtime, or really whatever using just HomeKit. Signals works with HomeKit bulbs or outlet adapters with lights attached. Normally when it's dinner time you have to yell at your family to come to the table. With Signals, you simply run a command that flashes bulbs of a certain color. You can create another signal to let your kids know when it's time to go to school by flashing a blue light bulb.

Signals is designed to take advantage of the smart lights you already have and use them as a home communication feature. With a simple touch, you can flash any combination of lights around the house, immediately grab their attention - pair it with a text and you'll know they got the message.

Signals can be triggered in the app, using Siri shortcuts, and even right from your home screen with iOS 14 widgets, so it's super easy to trigger a command to let your family know about something.

The lighting effects included in the signals are flash, sustain, and pulse. The flash function will slowly melt a particular light in and out. The hold function will display a solid color for a preset time, then revert to the original color. Pulse is just a flash but in a much faster pattern. At my house, we always use the pulse to draw everyone's attention to the fact that dinner is ready since our children are younger.

Signals has robust support for shortcuts, making it easy to customize them even more. You can create the mentioned "It's time to go" signal, then modify the Siri shortcut to send a "Let's go" text to everyone in your house.

I've enjoyed using Signals a lot since the new version 2 was released. It's a great addition to HomeKit that I might see Apple integrate into the Home app in the future. Version 2.0 also included a new iPad version, and a Mac Catalyst version will be available soon.

Signals is a free app on the App Store, and there's a $ 4,99 in-app purchase to unlock the ability to create signals. If you're looking for a way to mimic Apple's new intercom feature without making noise in every room in your home, check out Signals for HomeKit.