Standby Mode on the iPhone 14 Professional changed my Google Nest Hub

I’ve spent the previous couple of years assembling my preferrred good house. Extra importantly, I’ve invested a lot money and time to make sure that most of my house automations run with out person intervention. However there are nonetheless some situations, like after I’m sitting at my desk, the place having a management floor turns out to be useful.

Whereas the Raspberry Pi powering my House Assistant backend sits tucked away in my server closet, I’ve received a Google Nest Hub that occupies prime actual property on my desk and acts as a management middle for controlling good lights, followers, music, and podcast playback, all whereas serving up images from my Google Pictures library.

Nevertheless, a lot as I like my Nest Hub, it has been fairly clear to me for some time that it’s beginning to present its age. The lagging software program and really iffy voice management have been a relentless stress level these days. Moreover, Google’s fixed removing of options has me involved about shifting priorities inside the firm. Lastly, the Nest Hub occupies a sizeable chunk of desk actual property for the restricted quantity of use it will get.

I’ve been in search of an answer that may assist me streamline my setup with out shedding performance. When Apple launched Standby Mode on iOS 17, it instantly struck me as a possible answer for my good house dilemma. These days, I’ve been all concerning the minimal life. I wish to maximize what I do with my present devices as an alternative of amassing toys that hardly ever get used, and Standby Mode on the iPhone 14 Professional might doubtlessly assist me get there. Might Apple’s always-on standby mode actually change a devoted system? There was just one solution to discover out.

I’m normally cautious about switching out tech that already works for me, however within the case of Standby Mode, I made a decision to leap off the deep finish. Contemplating my iPhone 14 Professional sits on a MagSafe charger all day, I had nothing to lose. In fact, I used to be below no delusion that Standby Mode could be a drop-in alternative for an inexpensive Nest Hub. In actual fact, the steep $ 1,000 price of entry to even get entry to the function places this squarely within the realm of nice-to-have addons for present customers.

However since I had an iPhone 14 Professional operating the iOS 17 beta and a spare MagSafe charger readily available, I did the plain factor — disconnected my Nest Hub, propped up my iPhone on an inexpensive desk stand, and began my little experiment.

Restricted, however purposeful performance

Let me preface this by saying that Standby Mode on iOS 17 is extraordinarily restricted by design. I’m not making an attempt to justify its limitations, however Apple clearly doesn’t need you to assume that its software program is something greater than a widget hub. The onboarding course of consists of choosing just a few widgets, and that’s about so far as you’ll be able to customise issues. You gained’t be manipulating recurring alarms or swiping throughout a number of UI components right here. Clearly, it will possibly’t be used as an Airplay goal, both. For my use, these limitations didn’t matter as a lot. I’ve spent years within the good house recreation, and my use circumstances have advanced to cowl simply the necessities. So long as it will possibly show images and management my music and my good house, it’s ok for me.

Apple’s strategy presents you with just a few preselected eventualities that the corporate thinks would possibly go well with a quick-access show atmosphere. This consists of a two-widget desktop pane the place you’ll be able to have varied clock choices or most first-party widgets. I used to be shocked by the dearth of help for third-party widgets, as that may’ve drastically opened up the capabilities of Standby Mode.

In the meantime, the opposite half of the pane will be configured to put a calendar, climate, reminders, or your to-do checklist. Apple’s good solutions are additionally applied right here, and so they can helpfully toggle the widget relying on the time of day or an upcoming appointment. I want to swipe via related widgets manually.

In comparison with my Nest Hub, this two-pane house display screen setup has confirmed way more helpful to me. I reside my life via to-do lists that get synced to my calendar, and having glanceable entry to that data was precisely what I wanted.

Subsequent, a swipe to the proper offers me entry to a rolling number of pics from my picture library. My main telephone tends to be an Android system, and Google Pictures is my central repository of images, so I undoubtedly miss the higher number of photographs accessible on my Nest Hub.

Apple’s tackle the picture body function offers you just a few totally different choices to mess around with. A people-centric tile pulls up photographs of your most popular contacts. Different choices embody cityscapes out of your images, nature, and at last featured photographs out of your native picture library. It’s a far cry from Google’s album-based strategy on the Nest Hub, however it comes with the territory given Apple’s local-first strategy.

To this point, so good. Placing the good within the good hub is the voice assistant ingredient, in fact. Let me be clear: I’m a Google Assistant religious, and I hardly ever, if ever, use Siri. Nevertheless, this experiment necessitated utilizing voice controls, and I’m fairly shocked by how effectively Apple’s much-maligned voice assistant labored. It’s definitely not going to switch Google Assistant’s smarts, however Siri has been completely able to pulling up related data like climate forecasts, controlling music, opening up apps, and, sure, even telling me the customary joke — all inside the Standby Mode interface.

Nevertheless, my favourite function, which I exploit essentially the most, is the music playback interface. The Nest Hub, by design, can solely management music taking part in again on the hub’s inner speaker or different Nest audio system in a gaggle.

On the iPhone, nonetheless, I can use Spotify Join to launch playback on my Alexa-enabled amplifier or bed room soundbar and management it immediately from the Standby Mode interface. It shouldn’t be all that shocking because it’s simply utilizing the put in Spotify app for the function, however it’s a marked step up for my use case. Be it taking part in again a podcast on the iPhone’s speaker, utilizing Airplay to forged to my soundbar, controlling an Alexa speaker, and, via a little bit of a workaround, even a Google Nest speaker — Standby Mode turns the iPhone 14 Professional into essentially the most complete music management hub available on the market, with out even making an attempt to be one.

I even examined out Netflix playback from the ambient mode interface utilizing Siri. Apple clearly didn’t design the interface for such use circumstances, however Siri dropped me proper into the Netflix app, and I might simply faucet and launch the most recent blockbuster. It’s not all that totally different from the way you’d run Netflix on an Amazon Echo Present.

As for good house controls, that’s the place issues get difficult. Should you’ve received a Homekit-enabled good house, it’s potential so as to add Apple’s House widget to the desktop, providing you with quick-tap entry to all of the necessities. Should you want voice management, you may also use Siri to manage all of your good house devices.

Sadly, nearly none of my good house gear is Homekit-enabled. I exploit Homebridge to parse my good house gear into Apple’s House app and assumed that Apple’s House widget would populate all my good house equipment. Nevertheless, that’s not the case. The widget requires an official Homekit hub like an Apple TV or Homepod for full performance. So, in case you use a DIY answer and like a touch-based interface to manage electronics, Standby Mode won’t be an optimum match. For my use, although, Siri’s voice management might simply hook up with my lights, followers, and thermostats over the Homekit bridge, and I didn’t discover the dearth of widget help significantly limiting.

A few weeks of use later, it’s clear to me that, like all issues, Standby Mode’s utility comes all the way down to what you utilize your good house hub for. Apple’s number of use circumstances covers most issues I do with my Nest Hub, and I’m not planning to plug the latter again in. The comfort of propping up my iPhone in panorama mode on a wi-fi charger and dropping straight right into a standby display screen with a few widgets is strictly what I want for my desk setup.

I see Standby Mode on the iPhone 14 Professional as a handy addon for an workplace desk or nightstand the place you won’t need one other system hogging desk area. In its present state, the function is already ok to cowl a variety of floor, however I can see Apple progressively plugging away at it and including extra performance or increasing it to extra units.

That stated, it needs to be fairly apparent that your telephone isn’t going to switch an always-on ambient hub — particularly in a shared-use atmosphere. Battery considerations are additionally one thing to remember. Holding your telephone perpetually related to a wi-fi charger can’t be nice for battery well being. After which there’s the matter of display screen actual property. The 6.1-inch display screen on my iPhone 14 Professional is serviceable after I’m sitting at my desk, however it undoubtedly isn’t seen from throughout the room. The identical interface, or higher, would make much more sense on an iPad. We’ve already seen the Pixel Pill doubling up as a Nest Hub, and I can see Apple engaged on the function as soon as it rolls out OLED-equipped iPads.

For essentially the most half, although, I’d name my experiment successful. Barring just a few hiccups with getting my good house gear working, I’ve had no points utilizing Standby Mode as a Google Nest Hub alternative. In actual fact, I want the cleaner, smoother, and, dare I say, extra sophisticated-looking interface over Google’s good show. Would I like to recommend others to chuck their Nest Hub and splurge on an iPhone for the function? In fact not. However in case you’ve already invested within the newest iPhone or are contemplating the iPhone 15 collection, Apple’s surprisingly forward-looking function is unquestionably price testing.