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Apple Might Make Smart Home Products Like Cameras

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Apple has considered building its own line of smart home accessories, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple could manufacture smart home cameras and other devices that would connect to its HomeKit smart home platform and that would tie in with a planned smart home "command center" that could come out as soon as next year.

homekit-showdown-redux.jpg

As one example, Gurman suggests Apple could create an indoor security camera that could also be used as a baby monitor, which is in line with a report we heard from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo yesterday.

Kuo claimed that Apple is designing a smart home camera that will be manufactured starting in 2026, with Apple planning to sell "tens of millions" of the devices over the long term. Kuo says that the cameras that Apple is working on will have wireless connectivity and deep integration with Apple Intelligence and Siri.

Gurman does not seem as sure that Apple will follow through on plans to create its own smart home products. He says that it's something Apple is "exploring" that could be prioritized should its upcoming smart home hub device turn out to be a success.

Apple would likely emphasize privacy with its smart home cameras, providing an alternative to cameras from companies like Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest. Ring has been derided for its privacy policies over the years, primarily because it had a "Request for Assistance" tool that allowed law enforcement officials to request video footage from Ring customers. Ring has provided police officers with Ring camera footage without notifying users, and reserves the right to do so in emergency situations. Google's Nest brand also says that it will provide police with smart home camera footage in emergency situations without a warrant.

Apple is known for having strong privacy protections, and it is possible that customers would trust a smart home camera from Apple more than a smart home camera from a company like Ring. Apple already designed a HomeKit protocol for cameras called HomeKit Secure Video, which is end-to-end encrypted.

Prior to coming out with any smart home accessories, Apple plans to release an iPad-like smart home display that will serve as a home hub. The smart home device, which is set to come out as soon as March 2025, will run apps and will control HomeKit and Matter-based accessories.

Article Link: Apple Might Make Smart Home Products Like Cameras
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/11/12/apple-smart-home-products/
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Make sense. Since Xiaomi has almost a complete range of connected appliances there sold in China. And Samsung has been doing things with their appliances connected through SmartThings. Two big players.
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The camera and hub display (in the earlier post) is a first move. If they got it right, I hope they'll branching out to other appliances as well (or doing a nice collaborations to appliances makers like they've been doing with car manufacturers on Apple CarPlay).
 
This is already a pretty saturated market. I can't imagine Apple selling "tens of millions" of cameras, especially when we all know they won't be cheap. Most people don't care about Ring's privacy issues (or are unaware of them). I just don't see them moving the kind of numbers they think they will.
 
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Despite all the "smart home" camera systems, they are still pretty dumb. Apple could build a system that really knows what's going on in and around your house -- ie, the people that live there, the guests, their preferences, etc. If these cameras and other devices worked well with Apple Intelligence, then maybe Apple would have an opening.

But it seems like something that Apple could easily give up on as well (original HomePod), which would dampen my enthusiasm for trying something new from them.

Personally, I wish Apple never gave up on Airport. Nowadays, with some many connected devices in the home and cybersecurity risks, a privacy and security focused mesh router from Apple would stand out.
 
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xalea said:
This is already a pretty saturated market. I can't imagine Apple selling "tens of millions" of cameras, especially when we all know they won't be cheap. Most people don't care about Ring's privacy issues (or are unaware of them). I just don't see them moving the kind of numbers they think they will.
Click to expand...

It's only saturated by volume, not key selling features such as tight HomeKit integration, local video processing, and better security that doesn't falsely gimp features when you enable it (e.g. Ring).
 
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Don’t know what would compel me to get an Apple in-home security camera over those from any other brand. But maybe they could finally pose some serious competition to Ring for a doorbell cam. Who has claimed that HomeKit support would be coming soon for like the past 10 years.
 
Just a coincidence that Bloomberg and Gurman published this a day AFTER Kuo’s report, right? Such a scam but they continue to get away with it with the help of sites like this linking to them.
 
Maybe this is the Robot project they've been working on. A primary function of a home robot could be security.
 
xalea said:
This is already a pretty saturated market. I can't imagine Apple selling "tens of millions" of cameras, especially when we all know they won't be cheap. Most people don't care about Ring's privacy issues (or are unaware of them). I just don't see them moving the kind of numbers they think they will.
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They don’t need to. Apple just wants people to view the HomeKit brand as a good product by selling these accessories in the Apple Store. They can afford to take a loss on this
 
MacRumors said:
He says that it's something Apple is "exploring" that could be prioritized should its upcoming smart home hub device turn out to be a success.
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But here's the thing: I don't see the smart hub being much of a success without a suite of products to go alongside it. I already have an iPad that I can use to FaceTime people. Making a less functional iPad that is in a fixed location seems less intuitive to me, but maybe I just need to see it in action and we don't have the full picture. But I could see Apple's smart home devices being wildly popular. They are so good at integrating their products together with their other products and services. Just the fact that it's end to end encrypted for video is huge for me, yet some of the companies that support HomeKit secure video aren't exactly the best in other areas like mitigating false motion alerts. At least in my limited testing with some family members' homes.

I think previously Apple didn't want to get involved in this because they were trying to woo companies to come over and support their HomeKit platform. Now they're fully interoperable with Matter so everyone is competing and consumers have more choice. So now is the time to enter the market since they don't need to worry about scaring away competitors. They are all part of the larger standard.
 
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watch. now HomeKit will only work with Apple cameras and other Apple hardware.

squash the competition with the Apple gated Garden.
 
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