If you’ve been dreaming about one day saying, ‘Hey Siri, have the vacuum clean the living room and the kitchen,’ Apple’s answering your prayers. Well, at least if you have one of the eligible robot vacuum cleaners.
With iOS 18.4 – Apple’s latest software, which is rolling out right now alongside iPadOS 18.4, macOS Sequoia 15.4, tvOS 18.4, and HomePods software – Apple Home can now play nice and control eligible Matter-compatible robot vacuums from Roborock, iRobot, and Ecovacs.
It’s been a long time coming, to say the least.
Apple first promised that support for these smart home cleaners would arrive by the end of 2024, but it took a little bit longer – four months exactly. Still, the support is here with the latest release.
So what does this mean? Well, if you have a supported model from those three brands, you can add your robot vacuum to your Apple Home and control it right from there or even integrate it into an existing automation.
That latter means you could set up a routine to have your vacuum cleaner start up a session when you leave the house on Wednesdays to ensure that when you return, the floor is clean.
Additionally, within Apple Home or via Siri from really any Apple device, you’ll be able to ask the robot vacuum to clean a specific room or ask for it’s status. Now, you may need to update your robot vacuum cleaner. Roborock announced many firmware updates today that will enable the models to work with Apple Home when they roll out in early April 2025. Those include the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra, Saros Z70, Saros 10, Saros 10R, Qrevo Curv, Qrevo Edge, and Qrevo Master.
Models from Ecovacs and iRobot will likely require software updates as well, and we’ll update you when we hear more about those. Regardless of whether an update is required, it’s excellent to see Apple make good on its promise of rolling out robot vacuum support to Apple Home, and it really will bolster the smart home offering.
Of course, we’re all still waiting on the AI-infused Siri as part of Apple Intelligence, which could make smart home control even better, but that’s set to arrive ‘in the coming year.’ That’ll likely need to arrive before the smart home display – aka a HomePod with a screen – that I and many others dream of, if it ever arrives.
