{"id":22076,"date":"2025-12-04T17:40:48","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T22:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/?p=22076"},"modified":"2026-01-25T15:04:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T20:04:55","slug":"automating-sensibo-with-apple-shortcuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/2025\/12\/automating-sensibo-with-apple-shortcuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Automating Sensibo with Apple Shortcuts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Recently I set up an old iPad as a sort-of HUD and control panel that sits on my desk, with quick access to: 1) location for my wife and each kid1<\/a><\/sup>, 2) Homekit\/Shortcuts buttons to control office lights and climate, 3) my Aranet CO\u2082 sensor<\/a>, 4) this week’s weather forecast, and 5) my personal to-do lists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A few of the home automation buttons integrate Sensibo<\/a>, which is an awesome device that replaces your mini-split’s default “dumb” remote<\/a> with a wifi-enabled “smart” device instead. It enables a ton of features that many mini-splits lack, like thermostat-style scheduling, Apple Homekit\/Siri integration, filter status, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I highly recommend Sensibo, but in trying to realize my control-panel-powered future I did run into some limitations with their Apple Homekit support, and thought I\u2019d share how I worked around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two primary gaps in Sensibo’s Homekit integration:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Fan speed isn\u2019t exposed to HomeKit. <\/strong>You can change the temperature, but cannot set the fan level (low, medium, high, auto).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. There is no HomeKit-friendly way to adjust temperature up or down, instead you have to set a specific temperature each time<\/a>, which is tedious. I wanted two simple buttons: \u201cmake it warmer\u201d and \u201cmake it cooler.\u201d<\/strong> Sensibo actually offers these in a widget but only on their premium plan, which I don\u2019t otherwise need. I\u2019m not paying $5\/month for a button.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Even though these features aren\u2019t available through Sensibo\u2019s built-in Apple integration, we can recreate them using the Sensibo API<\/a> and Apple Shortcuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Download the Shortcuts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Change Fan Speed<\/strong>
    https:\/\/www.icloud.com\/shortcuts\/4d02c2fc69444067acdf690b4a7248ff<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Change Temperature <\/strong>
    Warmer:     https:\/\/www.icloud.com\/shortcuts\/11a9942523224575bd3a09bb5c8d4c14<\/a>
    Cooler:     https:\/\/www.icloud.com\/shortcuts\/ed5a8561e1d34535b842ee56e86287b6<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Note: many AC units show temperatures in Fahrenheit even though they store the values in Celsius. This can cause temperature adjustments to jump in slightly uneven increments rather than a precise 1 degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    How to set them up<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    To use these Shortcuts you\u2019ll need:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. Your Sensibo API key<\/a>, and<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Your Sensibo device ID (so Sensibo knows which unit to control if you have more than one). To retrieve your device ID(s), first get your API key, then go to this URL with your API key appended to the end:
      https:\/\/home.sensibo.com\/api\/v2\/users\/me\/pods\/?apiKey=PUT API KEY HERE<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Once you have retrieved those, simply download and open the shortcut, paste your API key and deviceID in the Text<\/strong> fields where indicated, and save the Shortcut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        \n
      1. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

        Once those values are filled in, you can run the Shortcut\u2014it should immediately work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
        \n\n\n\n
          \n
        1. I work from home, it’s nice to know if someone else is around to let the dog out when I’m on the phone 😅 <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

          <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          Recently I set up an old iPad as a sort-of HUD and control panel that sits on my desk, with quick access to: 1) location for my wife and each kid1, 2) Homekit\/Shortcuts buttons to control office lights and climate, 3) my Aranet CO\u2082 sensor, 4) this week’s weather forecast, and 5) my personal to-do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[]","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[260,259,261],"class_list":["post-22076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-home-automation","tag-homekit","tag-sensibo"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G65p-5K4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22076"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22436,"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22076\/revisions\/22436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulmaiorana.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}