How to customize the new Home app in iOS 16

Apple’s HomeKit Home app is getting a major overhaul this fall with iOS 16. I recently previewed all the new features on the smart home platform, but wanted to do a quick tutorial on one of my favorite new features: customization.

In the new Home app, the options for customizing how your smart home devices, rooms, and favorites appear on the screen have been greatly improved. You can rearrange your Home view to show your most-used rooms at the top, or choose to have your favorites or camera feeds be the first thing you see when you open the app.

You can also rearrange the individual keys for your devices, e.g. B. lights, door locks and blinds – just like arranging apps on the home screen of an iPhone. This means your most-used smart lights or door locks can be in an easier spot for your thumb to tap on them quickly, and you can place two related items closer together.

There are new icons to help identify a light by its type (e.g. table lamp or ceiling light) or quickly distinguish other devices such as blinds and smart sockets. Scenes – which allow multiple devices to change states at once – now have more icons and the option to choose a color for each scene. And finally, there are new wallpaper options to add some personality to the app.

You must be running iOS 16 to use the new Home app. The app is available on all Apple devices including iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. It’ll be released this fall, but there’s a public beta available to download today if you can’t wait.

Here’s how to get started customizing your Home app in iOS 16 on an iPhone.

Customize the home screen

Home view is the screen that opens when you first launch the Home app. You can also access it by tapping the Home icon on the bottom menu bar. Home view shows all of the controllable devices in your HomeKit home, organized by rooms and favorites. There are also scenes and camera groups here. You can now rearrange these to better suit how you use the devices.

Rearrange sections on your home screen

• Open the Home app on your iPhone.
• Tap on the three dots in the upper right corner to open the menu.
• Choose Rearrange sections.
• You will see a list of all rooms and groups (cameras/favorites/scenes) displayed in the home view.
• Tap and drag the three horizontal lines next to a room or group and drag your selection to where you want it on Home view.
• blow Finishedand your home view will be rearranged.

Edit tiles on your home screen

• Open the Home app on your iPhone.
• Tap on the three dots in the upper right corner to open the menu.
• Choose Edit Home View. (You can also long press on any button/tile and select Edit Home View.)
• All tiles go into “wiggle mode”.
• Drag a tile to where you want it on the screen. It must remain in its assigned space.
• You can rearrange any tile on the home screen, including the new shortcut buttons at the top, scene tiles, and camera tiles.

You can also resize each tile on the home screen when it is under the room.

• To do this, tap the tile when it’s in wiggle mode.
• A resizing arrow appears in the upper right corner.
• Tap to enlarge the tile and tap again to shrink. There are two size options.

Hide a device from Home view

If your home view is cluttered with many devices that you rarely access in the app, you can hide them to keep your home view a bit cleaner.

• Open the Home app on your iPhone.
• Long press on a device tile and select it Remove from home view.
• The tile disappears from the home view, but still appears in the individual room view.
• To bring it back to the home view, find it in the room view, long press and select it Add to home screen.

Customize icons in the Home app

Customizing the icons for your devices and scenes can make it easier to quickly find what you’re looking for. There are now 15 options for lighting icons in the new Home app (up from 10 previously), while other categories have redesigned icons to make it clearer that the icon represents, for example, a ceiling fan or a table fan.

The biggest change in terms of icons is in Scenes. There are now over 100 new symbols compared to just 12 in previous versions. You can choose a roaring fireplace, a birthday cake, a book, or a ghost emoji to clarify what your scene will bring to your home. Also, you can now assign one of 12 colors to your scene.

Change the icon for your light or other devices

• Open the Home app on your iPhone.
• Long press on the device whose icon you want to change.
• Beat Accessory Details from the pop-up menu.
• Tap the settings icon in the lower right corner (or swipe up from the bottom).
• Tap on the current icon.
• A menu of icons will appear.
• Select the new one.
• Beat Finished.

Change the icon for your scene

• Open the Home app on your iPhone.
• Long press the Scene button you want to change.
• Tap on the icon.
• A menu of icons and colors will appear.
• Select the icon and color you want.
• Beat Finished.