Apple’s expansion into smart home technology appears likely to include home security cameras that provide text-only descriptions of what’s happening indoors rather than video recordings. Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman talked about this, adding that the camera will be “Apple’s New Smart Home Ecosystem” and a hub for managing smart home devices.
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Gurman’s post mentioned a project codenamed J450, which is related to home security and is developing the J490 device. We’re talking about a compact cylindrical camera that can be placed throughout the house. They record what’s happening at a very low frame rate. In fact, we’re talking about a camera that’s incapable of capturing footage that’s familiar to humans. At the same time, they are suitable for using artificial intelligence technology to analyze what is happening in and around the house.
Gurman mentioned that the new camera uses technology that is very similar to what Apple developed for its camera-equipped AirPods headphones. Rather than using millimeter-wave sensors to detect human presence, Apple’s cameras use image sensors with built-in artificial intelligence. This approach allows information to be processed directly on the device, just like the Sony IMX500 sensor. Such a system can operate without transmitting the images to a remote server, where they need to be stored and kept confidential.
Apple Home already includes activity detection for HomeKit security cameras. It stops streaming and recording video, but continues to track motion. This is similar to what Gurman described when talking about the new camera. He added that the new cameras will support facial recognition so the cameras can detect who enters a room. In this case, no images will be recorded; instead, the camera will provide an AI-generated textual description of what is happening in the device’s field of view.
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