Apple and LG team up on 7 smart home devices ahead of Oct. 13 event

Investing.com -- Apple is co-developing seven smart home devices with LG Electronics — including a video doorbell, smart deadbolt lock, thermostat, temperature sensor, indoor camera, outdoor camera, and floodlight camera — that will carry the LG brand despite being shaped by Apple’s engineers, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, October 6.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), whose shares closed at $333.63 on Tuesday and were trading up 1.07% in pre-market activity ahead of Wednesday’s NYSE open per Investing.com data, is the primary publicly traded beneficiary of this development. That pre-market move is relatively modest given the scale of the October 13 product event, suggesting investors may be waiting for firmer pricing and availability details before sizing up the opportunity. The partnership is designed to fill the product gaps that have left HomeKit trailing Amazon’s Ring and Google’s Nest in smart home hardware for years. LG Electronics (KRX: 066570) is the manufacturing and support partner; however, its shares fell sharply on the Seoul exchange Wednesday, down 10.54% to 208,000 KRW, as a preliminary Q3 earnings miss overshadowed the partnership news.

The structure is what Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman described, citing people with knowledge of the matter, as a "second-party" supplier arrangement. Apple can also help shape the products’ design, tailor their features and oversee engineering while keeping the work largely under wraps," Gurman wrote. LG handles manufacturing and customer support, giving Apple ecosystem reach without the full operational cost of building and servicing a broad accessories line in-house.

The breadth of the lineup is notable. LG has already filed regulatory applications with the US FCC and UL Solutions under names including LG Video Doorbell Wired, LG Floodlight Cam, LG Outdoor Cam Plug-In, LG Indoor Cam Plug-In, LG Smart Deadbolt Lock, LG Smart Thermostat, and LG Temperature Sensor, according to 9to5Mac. The filings make no mention of Apple’s involvement, and LG has requested that photos and precise technical details remain confidential until early next year.

On the technical side, most devices are expected to support Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Thread, and the Matter interoperability standard, per The Verge. The smart deadbolt also includes ultra-wideband (UWB) support, which could enable the lock to sense a user’s proximity and disengage automatically as they approach the door.

For LG, the deal opens new commercial territory. South Korean publication Chosun noted that selling smart door locks outside Korea would be a first for the company, and that an indoor security camera marks LG’s return to a category it last occupied roughly a decade ago. An anonymous home appliance industry source quoted by Chosun framed the mutual logic plainly: "LG can broaden its customer base by connecting with the Apple ecosystem, and Apple can secure LG, a global home appliance brand, as an ally in its relatively weaker smart home business."

The partnership could also serve as an on-ramp for integrating LG’s core appliance lineup, refrigerators, washing machines, into Apple’s home ecosystem over time, Chosun reported.

For Apple, this is the most concrete step yet toward a competitive smart home hardware suite. The company has historically left HomeKit device categories to third-party accessory makers, maintaining only HomePod and Apple TV as owned hardware. The LG collaboration effectively extends Apple’s hardware reach without expanding its manufacturing footprint.

Original Article

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