Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is targeting Smart Home as another business category to achieve growth. The Cupertino-based tech giant assembled a new team to develop different hardware products for the home that would deeply integrate with its devices such as the iPhone and iPad, according to report from 9to5Mac.
The report indicated Apple could stop its development in Smart Home anytime, but its work is already beyond the exploratory stage.
Potential lucrative market
According to sources, the iPhone and iPad maker believes that the Smart Home is an important category and a potential lucrative market. Apple envisions a mainstream usage of smart home devices in the future. The sources still do not know what type of smart home devices is under development by the tech giant.
Apple unlikely to compete directly with Google’s Nest
Apple is unlikely to develop smart home devices that would directly compete with the products of Nest Labs, the maker of smart thermostat and smoke-detector acquired by Google for $3.2 billion.
Nest Labs was founded by Tony Fadell, one of the persons behind the development of the iPod, the music player of Apple. The Cupertino-based iPhone and iPad maker is confident that it can create products with wider usage than the thermostat or smoke detector, according to the sources.
Potential products
The sources suggested that Apple would possibly produce advanced speaker systems or control panels for homes. According to them, the tech giant might use the technology of its recent acquisition, Beats Electronics to achieve its vision in the smart home category.
During its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple introduced the HomeKit API, which provides a framework that would allow users to group a number of devices into ‘scenes’ within the user interface. Users would be able to use voice commands through Siri using their iPhones or iPads to control home appliances using apps within the HomeKit framework such as turning off the TV and lights by simply saying “bedtime.”
A separate report indicated that Apple is developing a hardware based on HomeKit. The tech giant’s timeline for the introduction of hardware integrated with the HomeKit is still unknown.
