Why is reading HomeKit sensor data not possible in background

If this can be done in a battery sensitive way (I’m sure it can), I would welcome this as well.

I have filed a feedback for this feature (FB7805464) -- if any developers are interested in this as well, please do the same!

Got a response on my feedback - sadly, it’s not a feature that’s likely to come to HomeKit. The reason is to prevent third party apps from being able use this data to profile a users activity in their home. I do understand this, but hope that there’s eventually a way to do this, even if it means other restrictions are applied

I went through this several years ago and came to the dead end that HomeKit activity is only available to an app that is active in the foreground. I had to develop some fairly elaborate ways to work around this. I submitted feedback at the time but the bottom line was the security edict that background entitlement was not possible.

Today I received a cryptic Feedback from Apple on that old request:

"After reviewing your feedback, we have some additional information for you:

The HomeKit entitlement is public now. Please close your feedback if this is no longer an issue for you. Thanks!"


I haven't been able to figure out yet what this means!