Macworld
Apple made its big Welcome Home smart home pitch on Tuesday, in which it introduced the new HomeView device, along with upgrades to the Apple TV 4K and HomePod mini. But for anyone worried that there aren’t enough smart home devices that support Apple’s ecosystem (either HomeKit or Matter), there’s also a suite of new smart home gadgets from LG and Schneider Electric.
The Apple Home Collection consists of a set of six items from LG and one item from Schneider Electric. They are not Apple-branded, but have been “designed in collaboration” with Apple and will no doubt be sold in Apple Stores when they become available in December (with some items coming in early 2027).
They appear to be, generally, a little more expensive than comparable smart home items with comparable specs from other brands, but we have yet to see if you can reliably find them on sale at online retailers. Here’s the product list with their retail prices:
LG Video Doorbell: Dual cameras (front and downward to see packages) and a built-in spotlight, with resolution up to 2.5K. $249.95/£229.95 at the Apple Store.
LG Floodlight Cam: Dual motion-activated floodlights and low-light color night vision with camera resolution up to 2.5K. $399.95/£349.95 at the Apple Store.
LG Outdoor Cam: Also offers low-light color vision and 2.5K resolution, but without the floodlights, and with easy self-installation. $299.95/£279.95 at the Apple Store.
LG Indoor Cam: A 2.5K motorized camera that tilts up when you’re away, and points downward when you’re home to protect your privacy. $199.95/£179.95 at the Apple Store.
LG Smart Deadbolt Lock: Using Ultra Wideband, it can detect when a user that has a compatible Home Key on their iPhone is walking up and unlock automatically. You can always tap your iPhone, Apple Watch, use the PIN keypad, or a physical key. $349.95 at the Apple Store (not available in the U.K.).
LG Smart Thermostat: What can you say? It’s a circular smart thermostat that supports the Apple Home thermostat features like Adaptive Temperature. $199.95 at the Apple Store (not available in the U.K.).
Schneider Home Smart Thermostat: The same sort of thing as the LG Smart Thermostat, only with more of a “rounded square” sort of design. $199.95 at the Apple Store (not available in the U.K.).
There are LG and Schneider temperature sensors for other rooms available for $39.95, and some accessories like trim plates and C-wire power adapters.
Of the group, the thermostats seem almost unnecessary. There are a good number of smart home thermostats that support the Matter protocol and therefore work just fine with Apple’s home control and with Siri. Home security cameras that support Apple HomeKit Secure Video are more rare, primarily just from the brands Aqara and Eve. Smart locks that support Apple’s ecosystem are similarly pretty easy to come by with popular brands like Yale, Schlage, Level, and Aqara.
Since the LG cameras use Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video, no extra subscription is required, but the number of cameras supported by HKSV is dependent on your iCloud+ plan. If you have a 50GB plan, it supports a single camera only. The 200GB plan works with up to 5 cameras, and the 2TB plan supports unlimited cameras.
If you want to use Apple Intelligence with these cameras to get smart descriptions and notifications, that’s on a whole other level: you need the 2TB plan to get Apple Intelligence features on a single camera, the 6TB plan for up to 2 cameras, and the 12TB plan to support up to 5 cameras. That’s $59.99 a month in iCloud+ storage subscription fees to get AI summaries on five cameras.