Apple’s push into the smart home push is a decade late but right on time

The best time for Apple to truly embrace smart-home tech was five or 10 years ago. The second best time, of course, is now. The good news is that, according to reports from reliable sources, Apple seems to have finally embraced the home as an area of growth, and a bunch of new Apple-designed home products are on the way.

It’s a sensible decision, and if Apple does it right, its years-long intransigence in this category might not matter. Let’s take a look at where Apple may be going.

Coming soon

Beyond the Home app and HomeKit themselves, Apple’s first real foray into the smart home space was the HomePod, an overpriced counter to the Amazon Echo. Although the HomePod has become more affordable over the years, it’s safe to say that in this category, Apple has been a day late and a dollar short.

Still, this year and next may bring multiple new products that could be much more intriguing. This year, according to Gurman, Apple plans to launch a home controller screen running a custom operating system. The screen will be smaller than an iPad and meant for use around the home. Gurman suggests it may come with wall mounting options and an optional speaker dock.

This is great news for a lot of reasons. First, Apple already has a lot of the tech required to build a product like this in-house: tvOS to provide a simplified interface base, the Home app, FaceTime and Center Stage, WidgetKit, and a collection of third-party apps connected either directly or from a remote iPhone via a similar process to how iPhone widgets and apps run on macOS today.

If the speaker dock report is true, it’s also Apple’s entry into the “smart speaker with a screen” category, which has enormous potential. I’ve spent years with an Amazon Echo Show and a Google Nest Hub in my kitchen, and both of them are useful but also deeply flawed.

More broadly, though, a product like this sends the message that Apple is serious about wanting to be at the center of a smart home interface. It’s a declaration of intent from a company that has spent years fiddling around the edges of the smart home while not really committing to being a major player.

Where Apple can play

Per Gurman, Apple will launch a smart doorbell with a camera—you know, a Ring, but not from Amazon—and a home security camera next. While it’s obvious to wonder why Apple would enter such well-established categories, after a decade of this stuff, there’s very little virgin territory to be crossed. However, there are plenty of opportunities for Apple to establish itself.

As someone who has dabbled in smart home tech for years now (and if you’re reading this, you probably have, too), let me gently suggest that the smart home category is not fully baked. It’s been spinning for about a decade, sure, but making computer stuff work reliably enough for it to be up to the standards of regular home equipment has proved difficult, to say the least.

An optimist or an established smart-home tech company might snarl at the idea that Apple’s going to roll into an established market and take it over. But when I look at the current smart home market, I can think of very few players who have built up such success and such an insurmountable lead that Apple couldn’t possibly challenge them.

Or, to put it another way, I know smart home veterans feel like they’ve been doing this forever, but we are still in the prehistoric era of the smart home. I’m not saying Apple’s going to crack it and revolutionize everything for everyone—that seems sort of unlikely—but it certainly has plenty of opportunity to make things better and sell some products.

What Apple does next

The idea that Apple might take on Ring and make security cameras seems weird, right? I agree–it’s going to take time to get used to the idea. But here’s a rule of thumb to keep in mind as you consider reports about future Apple home products: Apple is Apple and will do it the Apple way, every time.

Esther Shein/Foundry

In the smart home category, this means that Apple will want to enter categories that are either unsettled, populated with cheap, uninspiring, and hard-to-operate gear, or have room for a premium-priced product that “just works” with the Apple ecosystem. Apple certainly doesn’t need to compete with that $25 security camera from a no-name brand you find on Amazon; in fact, you could argue that even in the case of the Ring doorbell, Apple has an opportunity.

Picture it: These products are prominently displayed in every Apple Store and on Apple’s website, along with carefully curated products from partner companies. They’re upsold to every customer who comes into the store. They’re more expensive, yes, but they’re from Apple, and they’ll automatically integrate with your iPhone, Mac, Apple TV, and iCloud subscription. For a lot of people, that’ll be enough.

I think we also need to assume that the Matter alliance is going to get its act together at some point here and that in the future, all the smart home tech out there will be more or less interoperable, which allows Apple to very carefully pick the categories it wants to enter. I know that Matter’s had a rough couple of years, but it has the power of all the industry players behind it–and they’re all motivated to end the era of incompatibility across all devices. Matter, or something like it, is required before the smart home era can ever exit its messy, experimental prehistoric period and become something that appeals to everyone.

Apple’s entry into the smart home market is a gamble. I suspect this is happening now due to two factors: First, the tech is really more mature than it has been, including the arrival of Matter and the presence of Thread and Wi-Fi radios in almost everything. Second, Apple’s “Home, Wearables, and Accessories” line—largely driven up until now by AirPods and the Apple Watch—has ceased its multi-year growth spurt, leaving the company searching for new revenue opportunities.

Congratulations, smart home. Apple thinks you’re the next opportunity. We’ll see how this all shakes out, hopefully starting later this year.