Apple Just Declared War on Smart Home Security

Apple’s “Welcome Home” event on Tuesday marks a significant shift for the brand and the new HomeView smart display was only the beginning. For years, the company has been slow to embrace the smart home. Small partnerships, such as the LG Circle security camera, were little more than Apple dipping its toes into the pool and most fizzled out. Now that’s changed, and the move will likely affect other smart home lines in the near and distant future.

This first-of-its-kind Apple lineup includes a much more comprehensive partnership with LG to produce multiple smart security cameras, plus a smart lock with a design I’ve never seen. There’s plenty of new stuff for us to test, and it all shares a bit of Apple’s signature style, with designs made for ease of use and quick setup. You can practically hear other home security brands taking notes.

“Apple Home Collection makes it easy to choose smart home accessories with confidence,” said Matthew Costello, Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering, on the announcement page. “Working closely with industry leaders LG Electronics and Schneider Electric, we designed every accessory to work seamlessly with Apple Home, so managing your home is simple, reliable and private.”

Apple is making its biggest play in the smart home world, but what really stands out? Here’s what caught my eye from the event, and what makes these upcoming products so, well, Appley.

An innovative smart lock design with LG

Apple and LG’s smart lock immediately grabbed my attention. I’ve seen dozens of smart lock designs but nothing like this. The outside housing features a unique circular keypad, apparently designed to twist for manual unlocking (frankly, first-time users will probably be very confused by this part). It’s priced at $349.95, one of the most expensive locks I’ve seen.

Apple isn’t providing many details on the smart lock features, but it’s expected to support Apple Home Keys and related auto-unlocking. It supports Matter, a rather unusual step for Apple, since it means the lock can also work with Alexa and Google Home, as well as Apple Home. It also supports Aliro compatibility, meaning it can work with digital wallets like Samsung Wallet when a phone gets close.

The lock is designed to work with other LG/Apple products, notably the video doorbell, another new field for Apple.

A wave of home security cameras made for simplicity

LG’s latest Apple partnership also yielded a series of security cameras, not just one but four in total, all 2.5K resolution and made to work with Apple TVs, the new HomeView and HomePod speakers like the new HomePod mini 2.

The slim video doorbell ($249.95) looks the most compelling to me. It has a dual-camera design, similar to Eufy doorbells I’ve tried, which means it takes both a broader look at your front yard and a close look at the porch, doormat and anyone arriving.

There’s also a wired floodlight camera (a whopping $399.95) with dual LEDs and adaptive brightness settings, plus separate indoor ($199.95) and outdoor ($299.95) cameras. Apple says the indoor camera has a trick where it automatically tilts to adjust the view when someone looks through it, and lowers itself when people come home to signal privacy, which reminds me almost exactly of how the latest Arlo indoor camera behaves.

These cameras will include recognition for people, pets, vehicles, packages and familiar faces, which is a lot to unpack. First, Apple still hasn’t disclosed how much these features will cost, though it says an iCloud Plus plan will be required. That also includes 10 days of video storage, which could rapidly fill up iCloud storage when combined with other content. This seems like a downside compared to other security camera brands that offer dedicated cloud storage. Apple also says it offers some local storage to save video when cloud storage isn’t working, but it doesn’t say how much it can hold.

Users can view all these cameras through devices like iPhones, Apple TVs and the HomeView, and Siri AI should be able to provide video descriptions and answer questions about footage, too, a feature that could save a bit of time but I’ve found has limited real-world use.

The designs, meanwhile, don’t scream “Apple,” but they do seem to have inherited some Apple aesthetics, though you can easily see the other DNA. My colleague, Ajay Kumar, who got to try these devices in person, said Apple worked closely with its partner companies on design elements and emphasized privacy features. About that – there’s one small problem.

Big familiar face questions

The familiar face recognition is trickier. Features like these detect and save faces so you can label them, and the cameras can recognize people for you. That means you get detailed alerts like, “John is at the door,” instead of vaguer “person detected” alerts.

The problem is how invasive this feature is, not only for family but for any strangers passing by. In fact, some states, like Illinois and Texas, and cities like Portland, Oregon, have largely banned this facial recognition technology. Several lawsuits are also underway against Apple rivals like Amazon Ring and Google Nest for violating privacy and taking facial data without consent. That makes facial recognition features controversial, and I’m somewhat surprised Apple chose to include its own version.

Apple says Home app data is encrypted end-to-end for privacy, and neither Apple nor its partners can read it for other purposes. The footage is apparently processed locally on an Apple Home hub or Private Cloud Compute, but it’s also stored in iCloud in its encrypted form. Depending on how this all works, Apple could be vulnerable to its own privacy lawsuits.

Another first for Apple – a new smart thermostat

Apple has never dabbled in smart thermostats before, so this is an unusual leap into one of the more complex smart home technologies. Instead of starting with something simpler like a smart plug, Apple is using its partnerships with LG and Schneider Electric to give users double the choice for larger, more expensive upgrades.

Both thermostats start at $199.95, and I’m honestly not sure why there are two. They appear to have all the same features, including humidity sensors, adaptive temperature control and the ability to tap into Clean Energy Guidance data in the US to help mitigate energy use during high-rate periods. The only discernible difference is that one is round and the other is squarish, but that seems like a small difference to adopt two companies’ technologies at the same time.

Smart thermostats are one of my favorite smart home devices, and unlike its security gadgets, these models aren’t much more expensive than competitors with similar features. These thermostats save on energy bills over time and often pay for themselves within a year or two, while also making temperature scheduling easier. Another advantage here is easy setup. Apple even mentions on-device wire detection to help make installation more DIY-friendly, something I’d like to try out myself.

How do these devices compare to competitors?

Apple is entering the smart home field very late, especially compared to chief competitors Amazon and Google. That’s not always a disadvantage, but the company will have to prove its new gadgets are must-have home upgrades. So far, I’m seeing many familiar features other brands have already built, but also a couple of unique design choices that could help Apple stand out if performance is strong.

iCloud Plus could also make Apple home security subscriptions cheaper than usual, but the retail prices are very high-end, with some exceeding even the priciest equivalents from other brands, so initial costs could be a problem for buyers.

I’ll know a lot more once I’ve had a chance to test these new devices in the coming months, and I’ll let you know what I think. When a major player like Apple suddenly dives so deep into the smart home, everyone has to take notice, but the details will matter most.