Has potential – Simple Control Home Remote Review

I used to be a long time roomie remote user until their licensing model became unreasonable and I jumped ship to HomeKit and Homebridge (adds HomeKit support for non HomeKit enabled devices such as the iTach). This has been working reasonably well for me. I decided to sign up for a trial of this new release of Simple Control out of curiosity, and it’s very much a step in the right direction. Simplified and intuitive UI and IP control for non-HomeKit enabled devices are the biggest differentiators. Unfortunately there are a few issues/gaps causing me to lean towards canceling the service before my trial is up: 1. Detects all my HomeKit devices, but doesn’t display device status for them. I have leak, air quality, occupancy, smoke, and carbon monoxide sensors which the app correctly detects and allows me to add as HomeKit devices. But once added there’s no way for me to see the status of those sensors, so I have to load the Apple Home app or the Elgato Eve app to see that info. This is the biggest downside to the app. It can’t be an all-in-one “Simple Control” solution for HomeKit yet. 2. Confusion around iTach devices. I have two. I’m sure there are other customers who have far more. The “fine print” seems to indicate that support for these devices is being deprecated, but a clear explanation and alternative are not presented. It would be good for the developer to post a dedicated page discussing decisions which have the potential to affect a large percentage of their user base. “Fine print” isn’t really the best way to communicate such a major feature deprecation. 3. HomeKit scene integration. I have many HomeKit scenes and there doesn’t seem to be a way to leverage those scenes with Simple Control. It seems I have to create activities to accomplish the same thing, which means they’re not controllable with Siri. This makes sense when activities include actions for IP-controlled devices that aren’t HomeKit enabled, but it would be helpful to have scene access within the app regardless. It would also be helpful to allow activities to trigger HomeKit scenes so that exiting automations could be leveraged.
Review by ReviewerKal on Simple Control Home Remote.