It looks like it’s going to be a year of firsts for Apple: the company just announced its first foldable smartphone, the iPhone Duo, and now rumours suggest Apple’s first smart home controller is due in a few weeks. Both represent entries into new product categories for the tech giant, bringing new opportunities for developers along with them.
Now, yet another rumour suggests Apple is trying to disrupt a different market: home security. New in-house cameras may use artificial intelligence (AI) to keep the whole system aligned with Apple’s long-term user privacy philosophy.
The information comes from prolific Apple leaker Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, who, when speaking on the Power On podcast on Oct 1, noted that as well as its purported HomePad smart home controller, Apple’s working on “building home security products.”
The “biggest thing” in this program, Gurman suggested, was a project codenamed J450. It’s designed to partner with the smart display HomePad, and it’s an array of “little cameras that you can put around your house.” They’re clearly designed to be discreet, since Gurman suggested each “looks like a cylinder.” He compared each one in appearance to chapstick.
This concept, if true, squares well with Apple’s design-forward aesthetic. But digital privacy advocates may immediately note that multiple in-home cameras sound like a very un-Apple plan. The company is ferocious about keeping its users’ privacy central to each product launch, and frequently notes that even when people use Apple’s cloud storage systems, no one, not even Apple, can see the data. So how will they handle this one?
The answer may be similar to the way we think some upcoming Apple AirPods will work. Equipped with cams, they won’t record video and instead will act as visual sensors for Apple’s AI.
Gurman pointed out that the security cams will have a “very low frame rate”, so they’re not about capturing high-resolution video. They’ll use Siri AI for “analysing your environment in your home and around your home” in a way that “cannot actually pull in real video footage.” This means the cameras are not like traditional CCTV systems, and instead are more a way for a smart-home system to access visual data about what’s happening.
In-home cameras working like this may be able to spot unexpected issues like flooding, a person falling over, or, once you’ve given them permission to ID family members, to know that, say, Mom is in the living room while Dad is in the bedroom so that the smart home controller could deliver custom info to each person.
These are speculative use cases, but they do resonate with Apple’s privacy-preserving policies. They also rhyme with another recent Apple product: AI systems for new Apple Watches that let wearers rewind the last 15 seconds of conversation, or receive a summary of things the Watches heard during the day. These AI-powered systems work in a very similar way by not actually recording audio at all, and instead sending text transcripts to Watch owners.
We won’t have to wait long to find out exactly how accurate Gurman’s leaked information is: Apple is apparently preparing to announce the smart home HomePad device on Oct 13 – with Apple stores already reportedly in possession of “do not open” boxes possibly containing promotional materials associated with the new products. It would make sense for Apple to launch home security cameras at the same time. – Inc./Tribune News Service
