Apple is calling in a heavyweight to help fill out its long-promised smart home lineup.
The company has enlisted LG Electronics to co-develop a range of smart home accessories - including a video doorbell, a thermostat, a smart deadbolt lock, and security cameras - designed to work with Apple's upcoming home hub, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
The products will carry the LG brand, not Apple's. The South Korean company will manufacture the devices and handle product support, while Apple helped shape their design, features, and engineering behind the scenes. Spokespeople for both companies declined to comment.
A second-party playbook
The arrangement follows a familiar Apple pattern. The company has long worked discreetly with accessory makers - such as Foxconn's Belkin and Logitech - to develop products that sell under other brands.
The approach lets Apple expand an ecosystem quickly without shouldering the full cost and complexity of producing and supporting every accessory itself, while still overseeing the engineering and keeping the work largely under wraps.
LG may seem like an unusual partner for smart home gear, but the electronics giant has been quietly positioning itself in the category: it bought a majority stake in the smart home platform Homey in 2024 and has been expanding its connected-device portfolio.
LG and Apple already have a longstanding relationship, with LG Display supplying screens for Apple products and LG having previously made UltraFine monitors designed for Mac users.
What the filings reveal
Details of the lineup surfaced in documents LG submitted to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and UL Solutions, which describe a wired video doorbell, a thermostat, a smart deadbolt lock, a temperature sensor, an indoor security camera, an outdoor security camera, and a floodlight camera.
Apple is not named in the filings, and LG asked regulators to keep some details confidential.
Several of the devices support Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Thread, and Matter - the open standards that would let them work across modern smart home setups. The smart lock also includes Ultra Wideband support, which would allow for close-proximity auto-unlocking as a user approaches the door.
A reboot of HomeKit
The collaboration is part of what Bloomberg describes as an effective reboot of HomeKit, the smart home platform Apple introduced in 2014 but which has lagged behind offerings from Amazon and Google.
Apple is expected to unveil its own core hardware - a smart home hub with a 6-inch square display, a new Apple TV 4K, and an updated HomePod mini - at an event on October 13.
The LG-made accessories, however, are not expected to launch alongside them. Development of the accessories has lagged behind Apple's own devices, and the products are not expected to reach consumers for at least a few more months.
If the strategy works, Apple could end up fielding a full smart home lineup to rival Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest - without building any of it itself.
By Hamza Faisal
