Summary
Apple has partnered with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric to launch the Apple Home Collection, an assortment of smart home devices meant to be easy to set up and use. The collection is something of a smart home starter pack, including security cameras, a video doorbell, a door lock, and two thermostats.
The new Apple Home Collection includes a video doorbell, smart lock, and more
Apple has co-developed the products with LG and Schneider Electric to work seamlessly with its Apple Home smart home platform.
Apple has co-developed the products with LG and Schneider Electric to work seamlessly with its Apple Home smart home platform.
Apple is announcing the products as part of a major push into the smart home space, led by its new Siri AI-powered HomeView smart display. The devices are the first smart home gadgets the company has made for Apple Home; previously, it relied on third parties to make products for the platform. While third parties manufactured these, Apple co-developed each product and says they are designed to work seamlessly with Apple Home. Apple introduced the collection at its Welcome Home event in New York City today, where it also showcased the new Apple TV 4K and the HomePod Mini 2.
The collection shares a similar design aesthetic; Apple says it and its partners designed each product with a simple, clean look in mind. The devices come in black or silver with some white touches and options. The cameras share a tubular design; I saw them installed in Apple’s smart home in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood this week, and they are largely unremarkable — not ugly but not showpieces, seemingly designed to blend in as much as possible. They remind me of products from French smart home manufacturer Netatmo, but not quite as stylish.
Apple said its main focus with the collection was to make the accessories easy to set up, reliable for everyday use, and capable of keeping your data private. All the products work with the Apple Home app (no third-party apps or accounts are needed), and Apple says they are as easy to pair as a HomePod or AirPods; just tap them with your iPhone, and it will recognize them using Bluetooth and NFC. Apple says all accessories in the collection are managed by Apple products, like an iPhone or a device that can act as an Apple Home Hub, and communication is end-to-end encrypted, so only you can say who has access to your data.
Ultimately, while easier setup is a nice touch, installation and ongoing connectivity issues with smart home devices like cameras and door locks are what give people headaches. I hope Apple has addressed those here, too, but we won’t know until we test them. The collection does fill a gap in Apple’s offering, giving it a line of products blessed by the platform. Amazon with Ring and Google with Nest both have products they can point users to when they are looking to set up a smart home. Now Apple has the same.
There are six devices in total, with the UWB-powered door lock being the most interesting — it’s only the third lock on the market to support Apple’s hands-free unlocking using UWB.
LG deadbolt lock
The LG smart lock costs 249 and features two cameras: one front-facing for viewing visitors and one pointing down for packages, both cameras support up to 2.5K resolution. The camera comes in silver or black and has a long, tubular design, and sticks out slightly from the wall. It also features a motion-activated light that illuminates the floor to help it see packages and light the area when you approach the door at night.
The doorbell needs to be wired into your home’s doorbell wiring and can ring your HomePods as a chime. It will be available in the US, Canada, and the UK, but Apple hasn’t given a release date. It supports Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video, so it can send smart notifications for Familiar Faces, pets, packages, and vehicles.
If you have an iCloud subscription, recorded video is automatically saved there. Footage is processed locally on an Apple Home Hub and sent to the cloud end-to-end encrypted. If you enable Apple Intelligence on the camera via a supported phone (an iPhone 15 Pro or newer), you can get AI-powered text descriptions that give you more details about what the camera saw than standard notifications. These clips use Apple’s Private Cloud Compute and require a higher iCloud storage tier.
LG indoor and outdoor security cameras
The indoor camera has a similar tubular look; the model I saw was white and looked a bit like a desk lamp. It costs 299 and one with motion-activated floodlights for 199, are designed for North American HVAC systems, and work with or without a C-wire. They will be available in the US and Canada starting in December.
The two thermostats have similar designs, with an opaque screen overlaid by touchscreen controls. I saw a glowing orb visual on the Schneider model when it adjusted the temperature, but they seem designed to blend in, unlike Google’s latest Nest thermostat, which feels more like a statement piece.
The thermostats support Matter, so they can work with other smart home ecosystems, and each comes with remote sensors for monitoring temperature and humidity. The thermostats should support Apple Home’s adaptive temperature features; we are confirming with Apple.
Most Popular
- A college in Illinois tried to cancel its Flock contact and it refused
- The Fitbit Edge is for folks who don’t want to go totally screenless
- GTA VI leaks continue with a lengthy (and very nude) gameplay video
- The Yandex outage probably didn’t blitz Russian bots
- No Man’s Sky is coming to the iPhone and iPad