Honeywell Home's T9 Smart Thermostat Finally Gets HomeKit Compatibility

Honeywell Home T9, Resideo's first consumer thermostat to support remote temperature sensors, has finally brought a long-promised feature to its users: HomeKit. The brand, which is licensed by Resideo and spun off from Honeywell in 2018, already has support for Apple's smart home system in its T5 thermostat, also known as the Lyric T5, but that device doesn't have external sensors. Sensors can help make sure you are comfortable in the room you are in, rather than simply maintaining the desired temperature where the thermostat is.

As Verge editor Dan Seifert wrote in his Honeywell T9 review, its sensors are very good and can measure humidity in addition to temperature, something neither Nest nor Ecobee remote sensors can do. They can also detect movement and presence and will adjust the system to the rooms where it detects people. The T9 costs $ 199 and comes with a remote sensor in the box, with support for up to 20.

As per Resideo, with the HomeKit integration, users can control their Honeywell Home T9 smart thermostat using Siri or with the Apple Home app. Once connected, you can use automation to adjust the temperature or ask Siri to do it for you. Unlike the Ecobee Smart Thermostat, there is no built-in voice assistant, so you must use a HomePod Mini, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch to invoke the assistant. Resideo did not specify whether it will be able to use temperature or sensor movement to trigger routines in the Home app. Honeywell Home T9 is already compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

Whether this really matters remains to be seen, considering that smart thermostats are in Matter's first specification (the new smart home standard that promises to unify connected devices in our home). Resideo is on the board of the Connectivity Standards Alliance, which oversees Matter, so it seems likely that its thermostats will be Matter-enabled when the standard is released next year. This should mean that users can control their thermostat with any smart home ecosystem of their choice, as long as it is compatible with Matter. But in the meantime, T9 owners will be able to keep their toes warm this holiday season with just a few words to their Apple voice assistant.