The Vergecast · Thursday, September 3, 2026
Andrew O'Hara provides an overview of Apple HomeKit, highlighting its decade-long journey from a security-focused platform requiring dedicated hardware chips to a more software-driven approach. He notes its integration with the Matter standard for pairing and onboarding, and emphasizes Apple's continued focus on privacy and security, with local AI processing for devices like cameras. O'Hara suggests that Apple's unique approach could make its future smart home devices compelling.
“Um, I mean, Apple really jumped into the smart home space. It's been, you know, more than 10 years now, um, when they first launched HomeKit. And it was, you know, kind of pitched as a very secure version of like the smart home because in the early days you had a ton of Amazon devices that were just kind of getting rubber stamped, certification that were fraught with security issues and things like that.”
“And it has since, you know, gotten a little more lenient with that as Apple figured out how to do much of the same stuff through just software. But it has grown up so much then, HomeKit became a large part of the framework for matter, you know, the open standard now, including like the pairing process and onboarding process and all of that.”
“I mean, even cameras like until iOS 17 and all these launch, all the AI processing is done locally on your Apple TV or your HomePod, anything like that. So they've really put that as kind of their big push in the smart home space.”