- The Apple Home Collection is a new set of smart-home devices made by LG Electronics and Schneider Electric
- The new devices have been designed in partnership with Apple
- The smart locks, video doorbell, and sensors, among other devices, are designed to work seamlessly with Apple Home
While there are lots of smart-home of gadgets that work with Apple Home — or HomeKit, as it was once called — Apple has never really taken the next step of designing and building its own devices, like doorbells, sensors, thermostats, and locks. That’s still the case, but alongside unveiling the Apple HomeView smart display, with features that clearly make it a smart home hub, the tech giant is also moving into the smart-home device space, in collaboration with partner brands.
Rather than simply certifying devices for Apple Home — and those options aren’t going away — Apple has been working with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric to design and build several devices that will serve as a new flagship standard for gadgets in Apple's ecosystem. They'll start shipping in December.
The new doorbell, indoor and outdoor cameras, thermostats, and various sensors represent a set of gadgets that not only work seamlessly with Apple’s home hubs — Apple TV 4K, HomePod, HomePod mini, and the new HomeView — but also integrate with the broader Apple Home ecosystem, allowing Siri to be central to controlling them.
All these new devices look and feel modern and well-made. Take LG Electronics’ Video Doorbell, for example: it’s a wired option priced at $249 in the US and £229 in the UK. It’s a sleek, matte-silver cylinder with a classic doorbell button, microphones, a speaker, and two cameras. One camera faces outward to give you a view of who’s at your door or what’s happening on the street, while the other faces downward, so that you can see whether a package has been dropped off.
There's also an LG Door Lock, which will work in the United States and Canada, and conforms to the deadbolt lock standard in North America. This is priced at $199. Like the recently launched Ring Smart Lock, it supports UWB — ultra-wideband — and Apple Home Key, so as you approach the door with your iPhone or Apple Watch, it can sense your arrival and automatically unlock the door. You can also enter a code using the keypad, or slide the panel to the side to use a physical key.
Another potentially over-engineered, but pretty sleek, option is LG’s Indoor Camera. This cylindrical camera sits in a mini drum connected to an arm, and when you set it not to be in use — such as when you arrive home, or according to a schedule — it swivels downward so the lens faces the floor. There’s no physical shutter here, but it’s a unique and visible approach to privacy, and you can also activate it on demand with a button on the top. It’s priced at $199 in the US and £179.95 in the UK.
These are just three of the devices in the collection. LG is also making an Outdoor Camera, with or without a floodlight, while both LG and Schneider Electric offer smart thermostat s, and Schneider Electric is making a variety of sensors. It’s likely that these are just the start of a much larger range, but they cover some of the basic building blocks of a smart home.
While these new devices aren’t made directly by Apple, this partnership arrangement is similar to how Apple worked with LG on the original UltraFine 2K and 4K monitors for MacBook Pro users, or how Belkin has become a featured partner for accessories such as the MagSafe mount that lets you use your iPhone as a webcam for your Mac.
I think it’s also a tell about exactly where Apple wants to play within the smart home. For instance, there are no smart lights here, likely because a handful of lighting brands already support Apple Home, from Nanoleaf to Philips Hue.
As mentioned, these new devices won’t launch until December, with exact availability still to be confirmed, but I’ll be curious to see how they perform.
One unique aspect of these devices is that you'll be able to set up and pair them much like AirPods or an Apple Watch. You’ll see a splash screen appear on your iPhone when you bring it close to the device, whether that’s a doorbell, camera, thermostat, sensor, or smart lock.
That’s a slicker approach than the sometimes-arduous process of setting up other smart-home devices. It’s also clear that Apple is building on the foundations of the Matter standard, and making that experiences feel more seamless within its own ecosystem.