Apple Home is the dedicated HomeKit app that comes with iOS 10 allowing you to monitor and control your HomeKit enabled devices from your iPhone, your iPad or your Apple Watch.

However, many of the HomeKit enabled apps also come with their own dedicated offering, with some, like the Eve app, even going as far as to offer greater control over not only the range of Eve devices available such as the Eve Thermo or Eve Energy (UK, US), but other HomeKit enabled devices from companies like Philips.

Apple Home app

The dedicated Apple app benefits from being "baked in" to iOS 10 allowing you to access it via the control panel (swiping up) at any point, or through voice commands via Siri without even having to open any app.

It means things like "Hey Siri, turn off my lights" is not only possible, but very easy, and that's before you start to dabble with other more basic options in the new Home app.

In the Home app itself you can see your HomeKit enabled accessories categorised, which room you have them in, and quickly access any scenes you have set up. Turning off your Christmas tree lights simply, because you've pressed a button in an app on your phone rather than crawling under the tree, is now possible.

If you have an Apple TV 4 in range of your Wi-Fi or Bluetooth based HomeKit accessories, you can control them through basic automations like setting devices to turn on at a set time or when a sensor detects motion without the need to have the phone on, or even in your possession.

If you don't have an iOS 10 device to hand, Apple also allows you to control scenes via an Apple Watch from the comfort of your own wrist.

Elgato Eve app

You might question why you need to use a dedicated app when Apple Home is so simple and easy to use. However, while its simplicity is one of its greatest assets, it can also be one of its greatest flaws.

For more in-depth information, data, and historical values, you'll need the Elgato Eve app, especially if you have an Elgato Eve device. Also, the Eve app offers an even more concise At a Glance view of your accessories because it will display all of an accessory's services in a single tile. If you own two Eve Room and one Eve Weather, Home app's overview will display them as nine tiles.

Available from the App Store as a free download, the Eve app lets you access all the data collected by your Eve accessories allowing you to analyse what data the device has captured over a given time frame.

That's incredibly powerful when it comes to analysing things like air quality, energy usage with the Eve Energy (UK, US), or when a specific door was opened or closed.

The app even goes one step further and allows you to add historical data to your favourite spreadsheet app so over time you can build a very detailed picture of what your house and the devices in it are doing while you aren't there.

The Eve app also allows you to use the full range of rules with value and location triggers, along with optional conditions, something that isn't available in the Apple Home app.

Like other vendors, Elgato uses additional custom HomeKit types that are not visible in the Home app, including energy consumption (Eve Energy  (UK, US)), temperature offset (Eve Thermo), air pressure (Eve Weather), historical data, and more.

You can also use the Eve app to monitor firmware updates.