Apple rumoured to be developing a smart home camera with AI features and HomeKit integration

Apple already offers two smart home hubs, the Apple TV 4K and the HomePod, of which the latter can act as a control center for the smart home in conjunction with Apple HomeKit and Matter. A new product that can control smart home devices directly via a touchscreen is said to be in development for a launch next year in the form of a smart home display.

According to the latest information from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is also currently developing a smart home camera that is set to go into production as early as 2026. Apple is reportedly planning to produce more than 10 million surveillance cameras per year in the long term, which is quite significant, as between 30 and 40 million smart home cameras are currently shipped worldwide each year, so Apple appears intent on claiming a quarter of the market for itself. Apple's first smart home camera is expected to offer deep integration with Siri, while a powerful ARM chip may enable AI features to be processed directly on the camera rather than in the cloud in order to protect user privacy.

How exactly Apple Intelligence will improve the user experience of this camera is not yet known. Like some competitors, Apple may at least support smart object and face recognition and assign names to faces based on the data stored in the Photos app. With HomeKit Secure Video, Apple already offers the option of storing videos from smart home cameras on the iCloud servers for ten days and evaluating them securely. As this requires an iCloud+ subscription, an in-house camera could also serve as an incentive for customers to take out this subscription.