Characteristic types

The characteristic types supported by HomeKit-based accessories.

Overview

A characteristic’s characteristicType is a string constant—typically containing one of the values listed below—that tells you what the characteristic’s value represents and how to interpret it. Manufacturers can also create custom types, not listed here.

For some characteristic types, HomeKit defines an enumeration of possible values that the corresponding characteristic can take. For example, a characteristic with type HMCharacteristicTypeTemperatureUnits can only have values—corresponding to degrees Fahrenheit or degrees Celsius—from the HMCharacteristicValueTemperatureUnit enumeration.

For other characteristic types, the corresponding value might be a plain number, a string, or Boolean, or a blob of data with encoding specific to that type.

Topics

Light

Power and switches

Temperature

Humidity

Air quality and smoke detection

Fans

Purifiers and filters

Water

Doors and windows

Tilting mechanisms

Locks and openers

Safety and security

Audio and video

General state

Accessory identification

Deprecated characteristic types