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Preview Program: Setup and Release Notes

  • Updated

Introduction

Starling Home Hub Preview Program extends HomeKit support from 30+ Nest devices to 3000+ 'Works with Google Home' devices. It is a complete redesign of Starling Home Hub's core software, and uses the Google Home APIs exclusively (instead of the Nest APIs) to communicate with your devices. If you're an existing Starling Home Hub customer and use Google Home / Google Assistant devices, you can enroll in the Preview Program to test the new functionality early and provide feedback to us. If your enrollment application has been accepted, please read this guide carefully before updating your hub as it includes important migration information.

Our aim is to make the transition to the Preview Program as seamless as possible for existing customers who use Starling Home Hub with Nest products. However, there are some differences in Nest device support due to imperfect capability overlap between the Google Home and Nest APIs.

This support article details available functionality in the current release of our Preview Program firmware, including differences in Nest device support, and an overview of supported functionality for third-party Google Home / Google Assistant devices.

Setup and Configuration

The Preview Program will be made available to your hub as a firmware update after successful enrollment. Just open the Starling iOS app (version 1.4.1 above is required) and accept the update when prompted. After updating, you will need to sign into your Google Account again. Your existing Nest devices will remain in HomeKit, and any additional Google Home devices in your account will be added. These new devices will likely be placed by HomeKit into the Default Room, or the Room the hub itself was added to, so you will need to manually place them in the correct HomeKit Room using the Apple Home app.

When you update your hub to the Preview Program firmware, it will try to update your Nest devices on the HomeKit side transparently, preserving current Room assignments along with scenes and automations. However, for some device types (specifically Nest Protect) your hub needs to delete the old device from HomeKit and re-add it. This will have the effect of moving the device from its assigned Room back to the Default Room (or the Room the hub itself was added to), and you will also need to check or recreate scenes and automations for that device.

You can change at any time which Nest and Google Home products get added to HomeKit in the Starling app, under the Home and Device Settings section. Since Starling Home Hub does not know which Google Home devices in your account already have HomeKit support, we recommend disabling these devices in the Starling app to avoid duplicated devices in Apple Home.

Device PIN Code Access

Some Google Home devices support setting an access PIN for control (like locks and garage door openers).

HomeKit does not have the capability to prompt for an access PIN when controlling a device, so instead device access PINs need to be registered using the Starling app, under Device PIN Registration in the Home and Device Settings section. After registering a device access PIN in the Starling app, you will be able to control the device seamlessly from Apple Home.

Nest Device Support

Nest device support works similarly to the original Starling Home Hub firmware, with the following differences.

Nest Protect

  • Occupancy sensor in unavailable, due to current Google Home API limitations
  • Manual alarm test no longer triggers HomeKit smoke/CO alerts and automations, due to differences in the way manual test is handled in the Nest vs Google Home APIs

Nest x Yale Lock

  • Control of auto-unlock and privacy mode is not available from HomeKit

Nest Cam with Floodlight

  • The light is now exposed as a separate HomeKit device, rather than a sub-accessory of the camera, due to differences between the Nest vs Google Home APIs
  • Brightness control for the light (in addition to on/off) is now available in HomeKit
  • Known issue: if HomeKit Secure Video is enabled for the Nest Cam with Floodlight, and the Live viewing setting is enabled under What turns on the floodlight in the Google Home app, the floodlight will stay on continuously, as HomeKit Secure Video maintains a continuous stream to the camera. We recommend turning this setting off in the Google Home app

Google Home Device Support

Starling Home Hub Preview Program supports the following Google Home / 'Works with Google' device classes: air purifiers, cameras and doorbells, fans, garage doors, lights, locks, outlets, robot vacuums, sensors (temperature, humidity, air quality, carbon dioxide, contact, water leak, contact, occupancy, motion, light level), smoke/CO alarms, speakers, switches, and thermostats.

Security systems are not currently supported due to Google Home API limitations. If this is addressed in the future by Google, we will add security system support to Starling Home Hub.

We can only support Google Home device types that are also supported by HomeKit itself. So, currently we do not support things like washer/dryers or smart toilets. We will add support for these if Apple adds support for these device types in HomeKit in a future iOS release.

Important: for each of your devices, please report back to us how well the supported functionality currently works for you, and if you experience any issues.

Air Purifiers

  • Power on/off
  • Fan speed control
  • Manual/auto mode setting

Cameras and Doorbells

  • Note: cameras require support for the Google Home app. If your camera only supports streaming to Google Assistant displays and not to the Google Home app, it will not be supported in HomeKit
  • Snapshots and live streaming
  • On/off control (if supported by the camera)
  • Not available: motion sensing, doorbell push notifications, HomeKit Secure Video recording (third-party camera events are currently not available via the Google Home API)

Doors, Gates, Closets, Drawers, Windows, Blinds, Curtains, Awnings and Pergolas (added in 2024.29T1)

  • Open/close
  • Lock/unlock (if supported by the device)

Fans

  • Power on/off
  • Fan speed control

Faucets, Showers, Sprinklers, Valves (added in 2024.28T1), Bathtubs (added in 2024.29T1)

  • Start/stop water flow
  • Note: HomeKit does not support variable position valves, so we only support setting 'fully on/open' and 'fully off/closed' even for valves that have variable position control
  • Note: temperature setting on supported devices (like showers) is not currently supported. This will be added in a future update

Garage Door Openers

  • Open/close control
  • Door open/close state

Heaters, Coolers and Portable AC Units (added in 2024.28T1)

  • Mode control (off and heat/cool)
  • Temperature setting
  • Fan speed control (if supported by the device)

Humidifiers and Dehumidifiers (added in 2024.29T1)

  • Off/humidify/dehumidify control
  • Target humidity setting (if supported by the device)
  • Fan speed setting (if supported by the device)

Lights

  • On/off
  • Brightness (if supported by the light)
  • Color control (for full-color lights)
  • Color temperature control (for white lights, if supported by the light)

Locks

  • Lock/unlock
  • Door open/close state (if supported by the lock)
  • Jammed state (if supported by the lock)

Outlets

  • Power on/off

Refrigerators (added in 2024.35T3)

  • Internal temperature sensor

Robot Vacuums (added in 2024.27T9)

  • Start/stop
  • Dock/undock (if supported by the robot vacuum)
  • Note: because HomeKit does not have support for a robot vacuum device type, Starling Home Hub publishes the available robot vacuum controls to HomeKit as standard switches

Sensors

  • Supported sensor types: temperature, humidity, air quality, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), carbon dioxide level, water leak, contact (open/close), occupancy, motion, light level

Smoke/CO alarms

  • Smoke and CO alerts
  • Starling Protect 24/7 monitoring is available for all devices

Speakers

  • All Google Cast-compatible speakers should be supported
  • Note: like other third-party speakers in iOS, Starling Home Hub exposes supported speakers as AirPlay targets, not as Apple Home devices

Switches

  • Power on/off

Thermostats

  • Mode control (off, heat, cool, auto, depending on thermostat and HVAC system)
  • Temperature setting
  • Manual fan control (if supported by the thermostat)
  • Temperature and humidity sensors (if supported by the thermostat)
  • Eco Mode (if supported by the thermostat)

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