Apple Partners With LG on New Smart Home Devices

So interesting to read this one, and we'll bring the diagrams back up there in your story. But Apple is partnering, uh, on this range of device devices. So I've been reporting for years now that Apple has several first party and how smart home devices come in. This is part of a gigantic reboot to its home strategy. HomeKit, launched in 2014, has been an unmitigated disaster compared to what you're seeing from ring, from what you're seeing from Google, from what you're seeing from others. So Apple is starting over, and so they'll announce a new HomePod mini, a smart home hub with a display that's like an Amazon Echo Show in a new Apple TV. But yesterday, I revealed there's more in addition to the flagship devices. Apple's basically coming out with what I'm calling a smart home starter kit. If you're building a smart home, what would you want? You would want a smart lock, you'd want a smart thermostat, you'd want a smart doorbell, and you would want smart security cameras inside, outside, and maybe a floodlight camera. So they're coming out with all of that and they're partnering with LG on it. Uh, according to my sources. And I searched to the FCC database and found that these LG branded devices are, uh, in the midst of getting regulatory approval in United States. Okay. So how unusual is the step for Apple to, say, go to another company and be like, you guys are good at this, and we are good at this and we can work together. And then the big picture. Why a lock and a doorbell and a thermostat works. We got Apple is trying to do in the home. It's extremely unusual. Um but it's not unprecedented. They've done this a couple times. They've built devices with Belkin and put them under the Belkin brand before they've built some iPad accessories with Logitech and put it under the Logitech brand before. But this LG one is kind of crazy because LG doesn't make smart home devices, right? Like this is new territory completely for LG. Belkin has made iPhone accessories for years. Logitech has made iPad accessories for years. I mean, LG is basically completely out of left field and completely random. This is why this news was so shocking. They don't make, uh, smart home devices. They don't make the smart cameras for the home. They don't make doorbells, they don't make locks, they don't make any of this stuff. Uh, so it's fascinating. And Apple and LG have a big relationship, right? LG, the sister company to LG electronics, LG display, makes screens for Apple devices. Uh, one of the pieces of the LG conglomerate making camera modules. So there is some relationship there. And, uh, yeah, to me these look pretty nice. And like I said earlier, if you're wanting to build a smart home, uh, as a consumer, you're going to start with a doorbell. You're going to start with the law, you're going to start with the thermostat. And so that's why Apple is going after these products.