For the many that have yet to hear the news, Apple has taken to providing a home automation platform that many firms already offer in some form or another. The reasoning behind Apple’s approach, however, is the consolidation of the home automation process into one single platform to operate your entire household. Although it is quite an admirable cause taken on by Apple, we see that DMP’s Virtual Keypad App offers most, if not more, features than HomeKit appears to be offering. Although we have been mentioning DMP’s app quite often recently, we couldn’t help but to see the similarities in Apple’s rather delayed offering.
 
     HomeKit is reportedly designed with the capability of interacting with and controlling a wide-range of products as long as they are HomeKit-compatible. Unfortunately, despite the partnerships with many large manufacturers, these products have only been available within the last couple of years and the number of products being offered is still relatively low.

The primary feature that Apple is attempting to pitch is the schedule setting capability of their application. They call each setting a ‘scene.’ For example, if you were on your way home, you would tell the application to enact the ‘Arriving Home’ scene and it would then go on to turn on your lights, unlock the doors, turn on the heater and perform any other tasks that you had previously specified. Although this may seem to possess a certain wow-factor, the Virtual Keypad App offered by DMP already contains schedule-setting capabilities. You can set up a nearly identical option via DMP’s app by setting a ‘favorite’ (equivalent to Apple’s ‘scene’) to allow for specific lights to turn on, doors to unlock and the heating system to achieve a certain temperature all with one tap (demonstrated in this video).

     What does DMP offer that Apple does not? The Virtual Keypad App offers you complete control of your entire alarm system including the ability to view cameras within your surveillance system. What is more, DMP offers the application to iPhone and android users as well as allowing users to access the same features via their keypad or an internet browser. It should be apparent that not only does DMP’s app offer features that Apple does not, but it also makes these features even more available by allowing access to android users and anyone with internet access.