Apple is increasingly focusing on building its own devices and expanding its ecosystem by taking steps towards a more native experience for users and relying less on third-party accessories. While the Cupertino-based tech giant's HomePod and AppleTV have left quite the mark in the smart home category, it generally relies more on outsourcing cameras and other hardware for smart homes. Now, a new report suggests that the company intends to create a fully integrated experience by developing its own smart home accessories.
Apple's focus on protecting privacy and its efforts towards building a more aligned experience for its users is something the company is well known for in the tech community. It has been slowly transitioning to depend less on third-party manufacturers and building more products and accessories. While Apple's smart home products are limited for now, reports suggest that it is about to change with Apple working on making more smart home products itself.
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman's new report, Apple is expanding on home accessories and building its own products, such as smart home cameras and other related devices, for a more Apple-integrated smart home experience. Similar to Amazon's Echo, the command center could, in this case, serve as the hub for the devices. Although Apple can add more features to build a centralized system for controlling its new smart home products.
This report matches up with a claim by a well-known Apple analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, who claimed that Apple could begin developing its smart home camera in 2026 that might be multi-purpose and could even be used as a baby monitor and a security camera. The camera Apple plans on bringing forward would come with wireless connectivity and deep integrations with Apple Intelligence and Siri to bring more advanced capabilities such as facial recognition or smart alerts, for instance.
Kuo shared Apple's ambitious hopes for its new smart home products. The company plans to sell tens of millions of them and is confident in its ability to provide utility to its customers and unique elements similar to those of its other products. Gurman, on the other hand, suggests that it is exploring yet to expand into the category.
Given how Apple is increasingly focusing on user privacy, an integrated smart home system would further emphasize Apple's focus on ensuring the security and privacy of its consumers. This can help build high consumer demand due to the trust users would be willing to put in the smart home camera that Apple makes itself as compared to a smart home camera from another company.
Apple is currently focusing on releasing its home hub, which is going to be a smart home display similar to the iPad and is said to be come out in March 2025. If this proves to be a success, we might see the company build on a more complete smart home experience.