Apple smart home is real! Join hands with LG to create door locks and doorbells, a complete set of new products exposed

Bloomberg reports that Apple joins hands with LG to expand smart home territory. (Photo/Reuters)

Apple is preparing to enter the smart home market in a big way. It is rumored that in addition to launching its own new products, it is also cooperating with LG to develop a series of smart home devices, ranging from smart door locks, smart doorbells, smart thermostats, temperature sensors, to indoor and outdoor security cameras. In the future, they can all be used in series with Apple's upcoming new smart home hub.

Apple joins hands with LG to expand smart home footprint

What is special is that although Apple participated in the development of these products, they will not be branded Apple in the end. Instead, they will be launched under the LG brand, and LG will be responsible for manufacturing and follow-up support. In the future, consumers will buy products such as “LG smart door locks” and “LG outdoor cameras”, but Apple is actually involved in product design behind the scenes.

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This is not the first time Apple has adopted a similar cooperation model. In the past, it has jointly developed accessories with brands such as Belkin and Logitech and then launched them under the partner's brand. The advantage of this is that it can expand Apple's ecosystem faster, without having to produce, sell and repair all products by itself.

Some LG products have appeared at the FCC

Recently, LG has successively applied for relevant product certifications from the FCC and other agencies in the United States. The products currently exposed include wired video doorbells, smart door locks, smart thermostats, temperature sensors, as well as plug-in indoor and outdoor cameras and outdoor cameras with lights.

Product diagram of the "LG Smart Thermostat" in the FCC filing. (Photo/FCC)

"LG Smart Deadbolt Lock" listed in FCC database. (Photo/FCC)

These devices will also support Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and smart home communication standards such as Thread and Matter, making it easy to connect with smart devices of different brands. Among them, the smart door lock will also incorporate UWB ultra-wideband technology. In the future, as long as the user is close to the door, it will automatically identify and unlock it, without having to hold the key or manually enter the password.

LG has requested that relevant product photos and more detailed information be kept confidential until early next year, and the regulatory documents currently disclosed do not mention Apple’s participation in the development. It is understood that the development progress of this batch of LG accessories is slightly slower than that of Apple's own new products, and it will take a few more months at the earliest to be officially launched.

Apple’s smart home layout is also regarded as a major transformation of HomeKit. HomeKit was launched as early as 2014, but over the years it has not been as popular as Amazon or Google in the smart home market. Now Apple clearly plans to combine the new generation of Siri AI with more hardware products to re-enter the smart home market.

Apple's first smart home hub rumored to be unveiled soon

In addition to peripheral devices cooperating with LG, Apple's own new smart home products are also ready for launch. It is rumored that Apple will release a new smart home hub on October 13 (U.S. time), equipped with an approximately 6-inch screen, which can be hung on the wall or placed directly on the desktop and integrated with Siri AI. At the same time, the new generation HomePod mini 2 and the fourth generation Apple TV 4K may also be launched.

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