By: Nick Gambino
The smart doorbell and camera system has become a staple for most homes in recent years thanks to popular brands like Ring and Arlo. Now it looks like Apple plans to get in on the action.
According to Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg, Apple is hard at work designing a doorbell camera that will work seamlessly with the rest of your Apple products.
This means it’s going to fit right into your HomeKit and will most likely even let you unlock your front door using Face ID. This would mean the doorbell camera would have to come fitted with the Secure Enclave chip if they’re going to integrate Face ID.
Now the doorbell camera would probably be an Apple-branded product, but they would allow other smart locks like Yale integrate with HomeKit so that you could use FaceID in the camera and then that could handshake with the third-party lock to then open your house.
At least that’s one way it would work. The Power On newsletter report states that Apple may be looking to partner with one specific lock brand and sell it as a complete system at launch.
I think it would be good to offer both options. Some people, me included, aren’t going to want to switch locks if we’re happy with the one we have. That said, I’d love to have the option of opening my house with Face ID.
Again, that type of integrated system would make an Apple system more appealing than Amazon’s Ring. Imagine a simple scan of your face being the key that allows you entry to your home. We’ll have to see if they can develop it past the research phase.
Gurman says it’ll be a while before we see this Apple doorbell camera hit the market. In fact, he says it’ll be late 2025 at the earliest which indicates they’ve got a lot to figure out before they even announce it.
