Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video service is becoming seriously impressive

With iOS 27, Apple is rolling out Apple Intelligence-powered features like AI video summaries, natural-language search, richer notifications, faster performance, and upcoming 4K support — giving its privacy-focused smart home camera system a much-needed boost to compete with Ring and Google Nest.

In her hands-on first look, The Verge‘s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy tests the developer beta and finds it’s now back in contention as a solid home security option.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy for The Verge:
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I’ve been playing with some of the features in the developer betas for iOS 27 and tvOS 27 for a few days, and based on my first impressions, Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video is much improved — enough to put it back in contention for me as a home security system.

With Apple Intelligence bringing these features to Apple Home, Apple’s smart home platform is gaining parity with competitors’ offerings. It will also soon support up to 4K video resolution, and when you factor in that the service works with cameras from several manufacturers, it gets more compelling — as long as you’re an iPhone user.

Summarized videos use AI to process video from my HomeKit Secure Video cameras and send a notification with a more detailed description of the action. So, instead of an alert saying “animal detected,” I’ve been getting “dog in yard,” and instead of “person detected,” I’ve seen “lawn mowing.” I also had one notification that summarized several activities from one camera: “Someone walked into the yard and then went back out to a dog. Aqara G5 changed modes.”

I’m a big fan of the new camera view in the Home app, where I can scroll through a timeline of clips or view a live feed from all the cameras at once. The clips are sequenced by time, not by camera, so scrolling shows activity around the home in real time. When I click on a clip, a camera switcher presents footage from other cameras recorded at the same time on either side — which is really handy. I’ve used a lot of camera app interfaces, and this is one of the simplest and most intuitive.

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Here’s how to set up HomeKit Secure Video on all your devices.

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Source link: https://macdailynews.com/2026/06/16/apples-homekit-secure-video-service-is-becoming-seriously-impressive/