In March 2019, Apple acquired "Lighthouse" and their patent portfolio. The company had designed two forms of home security systems; a tabletop device and one that could be set-up as a ceiling camera system. Prior to acquiring Lighthouse, Apple had been working on such a project between 2016 and 2018 covering both tabletop & Ceiling devices. Shortly After the acquisition, two additional Apple patents surfaced supporting this project (01,02). The project then went silent, until recently in rumor form.

 

In Today's Power On newsletter from Mark Gurman he states that "Over the next two years, he expects home hardware to be a top priority for Apple. The push will include developing a new homeOS operating system and smart display, as well as a higher-end robotic tabletop device.

Apple's goal is to use its new Apple Intelligence platform to offer home automation on steroids, as well as precise control of applications, devices and media. A core piece of Apple Intelligence is a new App Intents system that allows the Siri digital assistant to manipulate features inside apps.

AI also will govern how the products work. The tabletop device will use AI to understand its surrounding environment so it can sense who is looking at the screen, what people are doing and who is speaking. That capability could make the device compelling — and it might actually be the first product built from the ground up for Apple Intelligence.  

One of the first big steps will be releasing a new smart display — something people can use to play TV+ streaming content, do FaceTime calls, surf the web, and access apps like Calendar and Notes. It would be an affordable iPad-like screen, and consumers could place multiple units around the house, like they might with a HomePod mini.

The tabletop device, which is expected to come later, would be on the pricier side — perhaps around $1,000 — and focus on home security monitoring, advanced videoconferencing, and media playback with high-quality audio. The screen would be positioned atop a swiveling robotic limb, helping it stand out from competitors’ products." 

The project sounds interesting, though it's not as new a project as Gurman makes it out to be. As we began our report, we pointed out that Apple has several patents on record and acquired a key company that had several more patents on tabletop and home ceiling systems.

For large homes, this may be  considered a feasible project. For those living in apartments, it will have limited use.

Smartglasses

Shifting gears, the Power On newsletter had a segment on future smartglasses. Gurman stated that "Apple’s Vision Pro team readies its response to Meta. Executives within the Vision Products Group — the team behind the $3,500 Vison Pro headset — are racing to develop devices with greater appeal. The Vision Pro is too heavy, too expensive and too hot to the touch, and it seems destined to remain a niche product.

Meta Platforms Inc., meanwhile, has had success with Ray-Ban smart glasses that are less ambitious but lighter and cheaper. That company also just unveiled a prototype for augmented reality spectacles that just might be the future of computing.

Into 2027, the team is considering launching smart glasses on par with the Meta Ray-Bans, as well as AirPods with cameras. The idea is to salvage the billions of dollars spent on the Vision Pro’s visual intelligence technology, which can scan the environment around a user and supply useful data. We’ll get a taste of this with an upcoming visual intelligence feature on the iPhone 16, but the plan is to bring the Vision Pro’s ability to understand its surroundings to more products.

The bigger problem for Apple right now is that it’s not getting new technology out the door quickly enough. It’s chasing a Meta product with something that may not be released for several years. And it’s still playing catch-up in artificial intelligence

The world is not waiting around for Apple anymore. It’s no longer the leader in several critical new technologies, and that’s scary — especially when there are rivals innovating and inspiring a new generation of users. The company has a stable base of revenue, at nearly $400 billion a year, but Apple can’t coast forever." For more, read the latest Power On Newsletter.

Patently Apple has an HMD archive that also covers many smartglasses patents and cover smartglasses patents from Apple's competitors in a separate archive, here.

On Friday, we posted an IP report titled "Google invents Smartglasses configured for Touchless Hand Gesture Interaction and the ability to project an OS onto a user's hand." Later this morning we'll be posting another Meta smartglasses patent regarding 3D Retinal Imaging.