My friend has Homepod mini and uses ipad/iphome most of the time.
He is now considering a some smart home integration.
I advised him to go for Hubitat but I'm not sure if Hubitat can receive commands from Homepod.
I don't know much about HAP (homekit accessory protocol)
is there any possibility of integrating Homepod to receive voice commands on HE hub ?
Of course you can control Hubitat devices through the HomePod mini! (& IPad)
(at least most of them).
One of the easiest approaches is to:
setup & define all your devices in Hubitat; make sure everything all works natively in Hubitat.
Use the superb HomeBridge V2 (from Tonesto) to send via MakerApi all that info via a RaspberryPi to your HomePod.
What is very amazing is that with all those interfaces, status and control is amazingly fast
It sounds more complicated than it is. Once it's setup, it requires very little, if any maintenance.
This will take some time, but there are many here who do just that (they are Apple households).
It does not have to be a PI server, Homebridge is compatible with a wide range of systems, but if you want āHey Siriā to control non homekit devices, homebridge is the way to go.
While setting up Homebridge may not work out
for everyone, there are so many well-documented ways to spin up a homebridge instance at home, some of which are even pretty hands off for the less DIY-inclined.
It should be possible for almost anyone to get a working, stable integration with Hubitat, if using Siri and/or the Apple Home app is a priority.
Also if you are interested in Apple Homepod Mini reading/tts house announcement (as I am doing), you are limited to setting up a Home Assistant in a Raspberry Ri 4 with Forked-daapd integration. There are smartapps to integrate Hubitat devices into Home Assistant, and from there launching TTS announcements to Apple Homepod.
Devices directly paired into Appleās HomeKit can not be integrated (report status or be controlled) from HE even via HomeBridge. This applies to all controllers not just HE. Appleās orchard is a walled garden
You can via an automation setup within HomeKit link a HK device to a āvirtualā HK device that has been inserted into HK via say HomeBridge but itās a kludge acting as a relay between the two. It is viable for on|off control and maybe level but not useable for any text values or broader numeric values or control like temperature, pressure etc.
Iām not sure I would characterize the value of homebridge as just allowing for one device to work.
Itās the only key into what @kevin accurately referred to as Appleās walled garden, and even then it has limitations.
But for someone in a household with iOS devices, it opens up lots of possibilities to use Appleās human interfaces like Siri (for voice) and the Home app (as a dashboard) along with Hubitat and its devices.
Appleās still pretty good at figuring out how (most) people want to interact with a computer.
I guess I could blow the dust off my propellor beanie and give it a try. I want to get away from Amazon for two main reasons: say the wrong word near any of my devices and it wants to do things, and the second is I want to migrate away from the "by the ways", and "did you know that..." advertising. I suppose I'd have the same issue with Google devices? Or, not?
Throwing a real Hail Mary here, but, here goes: if Hubitat fits Matter / Thread to our systems, could maybe then the HomePod Mini be incorporated? I already have the necessary Apple TV 4K to run Matter / Thread, but I am think of something by the bedside.
Update in this old thread. Now Hubitat has a native HomeKit integration! Though I'm still using Homebridge from @tonesto7 which "just works!" Added this comment for folks who might be searching and come across it.