[HOW TO] Trigger Apple Shortcuts from Homey

Tutorials
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I have found a new reliable way to have Homey flows trigger Apple Shortcuts. Previously I have used Pushcut for this but that is sometimes flakey now and development seems to have been abandoned since July 2023. Fairly recently the controllerforhomekit app added a new ‘Hub mode’ which can achieve the same thing. Note that I have no affiliation with that app; I am just a user.

Advantages

  • Under active ongoing development and support
  • Hub mode still requires an always on host device but there are more options for what that device is - can be a dedicated old Apple TV or running background on a Mac as well as dedicated iPhone or iPad which Pushcut supported
  • Controller for homekit app on iOS can be used as a dashboard so if you want to use that instead of Homey dashboard then an iOS device can be dedicated as a dashboard and also serve as the hub for triggering Shortcuts or HomeKit actions from Homey
  • Two ways to trigger a controller for homekit ‘workflow’ - either via a call to a URL (just use a logic card in Homey to make a GET request to that URL) or by detecting a change in state of a HomeKit device - which could be published from Homey via either the built in experiment or the HomeKitty app to enable control from Homey flows

Limitations

  • Many useful Apple shortcut actions such as Intercom are currently only available in shortcuts on iOS/iPadOS meaning that to use those, you still need a dedicated iPhone or iPad
  • Triggering using a HomeKit device published from Homey has the advantage of working local and not relying on the controller for homekit cloud - but I have found the cloud API is slightly faster and slightly more reliable particularly for repeated triggers in a relatively short space of time (the CFH app seems to sometimes ignore repeated HomeKit device changes within 30s-1m of each other).
  • Still relies on a subscription but for my use case £25 per year is fair value
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Hi Jonathan, I’m a bit curious: Why aren’t you using webhooks? It’s standard, easy to implement and works all the time.

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Web hooks are indeed an easy way to trigger Homey flows from Apple shortcuts. However this thread is about triggering Apple shortcuts from Homey flows and for that purpose Homey web hooks are not relevant. This method does offer web hooks in fact but they are web hooks which homey calls and which run on the controller for HomeKit app acting as server and which then runs the Apple shortcut.