The new smart home products produced by LG Electronics in partnership with Apple will feature a “tap to set up without power” feature, according to a leaker who spotted the reference in iOS 27.
Also, LG Electronics apparently won’t be the only second-party manufacturer Apple works with to create new smart home products. The same leaker says Schneider Electric, a French company with its North American headquarters in Boston, will produce thermostats, temperature/humidity sensors and possibly more.
Apple plans HomeKit-exclusive setup feature for new smart home devices
Apple’s plan to reshape the smart home market looks bolder than expected. While working on three long-rumored products — a new smart home hub, plus updates to the HomePod mini and Apple TV — Apple reportedly took the unusual step of teaming up with outside companies to produce various other smart home devices.
Apple supposedly worked with LG Electronics to make things like a video doorbell, a smart deadbolt lock and indoor and outdoor security cameras. The question is, what kind of secret sauce will the collaboration bring to the smart home market? How will Apple inject its patented “surprise and delight” into semi-stodgy devices like smart locks and security cameras?
The first clue comes from leaker pdfu, who described a consumer-friendly setup feature that sounds something like the AirPods’ magical pairing process.
“When you tap your iPhone on the accessory, HomeKit pairing happens over NFC,” pdfu wrote Thursday on X. “Your iPhone’s pairing identity and network credentials are stored in the accessory’s NFC secure element. Once powered on, the accessory joins your Wi‑Fi or Thread network, and your home hub completes the Matter setup.”
A quest to make smart home gear easier to set up
While Matter, the cross-platform smart home protocol supported by Apple and others, already features NFC pairing, the leaker described this feature as “HomeKit-exclusive.” That could mean Apple made setting up smart home gear — which can be notoriously finicky — far less painful for users.
The leaker spotted references to specific hardware in two of the rumored LG devices.
“Firmware for the LG lock and thermostat identifies an NXP SE051H Secure Element,” pdfu wrote.
NXP describes the specialty part like this: “The EdgeLock SE051H Secure Element is a turnkey solution — designed to meet the security requirements of Matter, by supporting the necessary algorithms and cryptographic functions and providing NFC commissoning capabilities in the upcoming generation of products. This allows developers to deliver products that are secure yet easy to deploy by delivering a better user experience.”
Meanwhile, pdfu outlined how Apple could differentiate the setup of new LG products from other smart home devices.
“While iOS 27 supports standard Matter NFC commissioning, LG’s firmware replaces NXP’s Matter NFC applet in the secure element with a HomeKit applet,” pdfu wrote. “This suggests that NFC provisioning will be a HomeKit exclusive. You can still pair the accessories over Matter once they’re powered on.”
Another Apple partnership: Schneider Electric
On Wednesday, pdfu served up another tidbit about Apple’s smart home push. Cupertino apparently hooked up with Schneider Electric as well as LG Electronics.
“The ‘second-party’ partnership includes accessories from Schneider,” pdfu wrote, citing a smart thermostat and a temperature/humidity sensor, both spotted in Apple’s beta code.
“In total, iOS 27.2 includes 10 accessory IDs in its _secondPartyProducts table in HomeKitMatter,” pdfu wrote. “These receive special treatment by the OS, including the setup assets reported. Many represent different variants of the same item.”
On Wednesday, the leaker published several short animations that appear to be Apple’s setup instructions for the new LG devices.
“All these are assets the Home app requests when you set up the accessories for the first time, similar to what you see when setting up HomePod,” pdfu told Cult of Mac in a message Thursday.
This followed Tuesday’s scoop from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who first reported Apple’s partnership with LG Electronics to produce smart home gear.
Apple’s ‘Welcome Home’ event on October 13
We might hear about all these second-party smart home products next week during Apple’s “Welcome Home” event. The October 13 event likely will not be streamed like a traditional Apple keynote. Instead, Apple invited members of the media and influencers to a mysterious “Apple Experience” in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood.
The three rumored Apple smart home products on the agenda reportedly will lean heavily on Siri AI.
