Tariffs kill the Starling Home Hub, Google Nest’s best bridge to Apple Home

I have bad news for ecosystem straddlers who use Google Nest products in their smart homes but rely on iPhones and Apple Home for control: the much-loved Starling Home Hub has been discontinued. 

In a message on its website, Starling said it can no longer manufacture the hub due to “rapidly rising costs of doing business for small US-based product companies like us (most significantly, tariffs the US government charges us to obtain the components we need to build our product).”

The Starling Home Hub launched in 2019. At $99, it was billed as an independent bridge that let you control and automate Nest devices — including thermostats and cameras — in the Apple Home app and with Siri. It also supported local streaming for cameras, improving latency.

Google’s Nest devices have never had direct integration with Apple’s HomeKit platform. While Matter adoption has helped — newer Nest thermostats now work in Apple Home — older models and all cameras still remain outside Apple’s ecosystem.

For many users, the Starling Home Hub filled that gap as a more focused, plug-and-play option than setting up a Homebridge server. It earned a reputation as both reliable and indispensable. Now it’s gone.  

If you already own one, you’re safe for the time being. Starling says it will continue to provide tech support and roll out security and bug fix updates, and hopes to have enough stock on hand to honor warranties. It’s unclear what’s next for the company, which to date has only produced this one device. The Verge has reached out for comment.

In terms of alternatives, the 2020 Google Nest Thermostat and the fourth-generation Nest Learning Thermostat both support Matter, allowing some control in the Apple Home app. Camera support for Matter is slated to arrive later this year, and with Google rumored to be launching new Nest cams next month, that may provide a path to streaming them in Apple Home. But even if Google adds Matter support to its new cameras and doorbell, we don’t know if it will extend that to existing devices.

For now, the hub is gone — and so is a simple way to bring Google Nest products into Apple’s smart home ecosystem.