I have previously stated that Apple Intelligence could be a driving force behind purchasing Apple smart home cameras. Long-term, it holds the potential to usher in a genuinely new era of truly smart homes.
However, the timeframe for when we can fully rely on Apple Intelligence to manage our homes is a different matter! There’s no denying that the technology still has a considerable journey ahead before it surpasses its current beta phase. Nonetheless, the long-term possibilities are indeed thrilling …
The Importance of Automation in Smart Homes
Some would argue that without automation, you don’t possess a smart home—you simply have more convenient light switches controlled by your voice.
Personally, I don’t adhere to that belief entirely. To me, even manually activated scenes exemplify a smart home. For instance, at the end of my workday, I use the voice command “Living room relax.” This command turns off three lights in my home office and adjusts four living room lamps to my preferred brightness and color temperature for a cozy atmosphere. It’s difficult to assert that such a capability is not smart.
That said, I agree that automation is central to smart home technology, and I believe everything that can be automated should be.
HomeKit offers various automation features. For instance, when it’s time for me to wake up, my bedroom shades open about 30% to let in just enough light to wake me gently, fully opening when it’s time to get out of bed. When the last person departs my apartment, all lights are automatically turned off; when someone arrives, the entrance lights are activated automatically.
Altogether, I have eight automations that operate daily, excluding the motion sensors that turn on kitchen and bathroom lights when someone enters, and turn them off again after two minutes without movement.
Elevating Automation to the Next Level
All my current automations share a common feature: I had to manually set up each one. I specified in the Home app which devices to control, the desired actions, and the triggers for each scene—be it time of day, sunset, another device’s state, or otherwise.
What would be truly remarkable is if my smart home could independently determine what actions to take.
I’ve already mentioned some scenarios that might unfold with a smart camera enhanced by Apple Intelligence.
For instance, it could recognize that your calendar indicates a trip to the gym but see that you’re leaving home without your gym bag, prompting a voice alert?
Or it might realize that your cleaner or gardener is scheduled for Fridays, but they’ve unexpectedly entered your home on a Tuesday, which would trigger recording?
Furthermore, it may identify that you’re walking from your bedroom to the kitchen at night and automatically illuminate your path.
Additionally, your entire smart home system could monitor behavior patterns and suggest automations tailored for you and your family.
Perhaps it discovers that you tend to switch the kitchen Apple TV to a certain news channel each morning when turning on the coffee machine and could handle this for you. It might recognize that when you pick up the TV remote in the living room, it’s time to create a movie scene, closing the shades and dimming the lights. It might also note that entering the garage around 8 AM on a weekday suggests you’re departing for work, thus initiating the sequence you’ve typically enacted manually: opening the garage door, closing it after you leave, ensuring all doors are locked, and activating the home security system.
Understanding Intent Beyond Automation
Another aspect of a genuinely smart home could involve deciphering user intent. Developer Mate Marschalko has already given us a glimpse of this by effectively substituting Siri with GPT-3.
For example, he informed the assistant he was going to take a nap, and it inferred that this should entail closing the window blinds in that room. While this is no more complicated than directly telling it what to do, it represents a preliminary step in this direction.
The ultimate aim is for our smart homes to recognize our actions, anticipate necessary responses to support our intent, and execute those actions automatically.
Making Smart Homes Accessible to All
Having utilized smart home technology for over a decade and transitioning to HomeKit in 2017, it feels like a routine aspect of my daily life. It always surprises me when new visitors remark on it.
Their comments remind me that while this technology is commonplace for DMN enthusiasts, it can still seem rather futuristic to the average person. Despite the user-friendly appearance of the Home app, creating scenes or automations can be quite daunting for many. Numerous non-geeks who own smart home devices stop at using their iPhone as a remote.
However, when technology can self-configure by detecting patterns, understanding intent, and creating automations autonomously, that’s when truly smart homes become accessible to everyone.
An optimist might envision this coming to fruition within two to three years; a pessimist may foresee a decade. Ultimately, that moment will arrive, and I believe Apple will play a pivotal role in this evolution.
That’s my perspective; what’s yours? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Photo by Stephan Bechert on Unsplash
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