Yesterday Patently Apple posted a report titled "New Apple, Amazon, Google and Zigbee Alliance form Working Group to develop Open Standard for Smart Home Devices." After the announcement, Apple posted a notice on their developer site that portions of its HomeKit Accessory Development Kit ADK was being open-sourced.

Specifically, Apple told their developers that in order to accelerate the development of the new universal standard, Apple is open-sourcing portions of its HomeKit Accessory Development Kit (ADK). HomeKit has grown to become the most extensive, powerful and secure smart home platform available on more than a billion iOS and iPadOS devices.

Built from the ground up to protect customer data, HomeKit and the Home app use innovative privacy technologies and techniques to help minimize the amount of data anyone — including Apple — can access as well as powerful security features that protect personal information. By open-sourcing its HomeKit technology, Apple will be helping to jump-start the initiative and ultimately deliver an even better experience to customers.

Starting immediately, developers can use the HomeKit Open Source ADK to prototype non-commercial smart home accessories. Apple will also contribute its HomeKit Accessory Protocol to the working group.

Existing HomeKit accessories will continue to work after the new protocol becomes available since Apple plans to continue to support HAP for communication with smart home accessories in its ecosystem.

The HomeKit ADK is used by silicon vendors and accessory manufacturers to build HomeKit compatible devices.

The HomeKit ADK implements key components of the HomeKit Accessory Protocol (HAP), which embodies the core principles Apple brings to smart home technology: security, privacy, and reliability.

The HomeKit Open Source ADK is an open-source version of the HomeKit Accessory Development Kit. It can be used by any developer to prototype non-commercial smart home accessories. For commercial accessories, accessory developers must continue to use the commercial version of the HomeKit ADK available through the MFi Program.

For Documentation and prerequisites visit GitHub-HomeKitADK page here.