Oliver Haslam·

iOS 14 HomeKit Adds Facial Recognition And Activity Zones For Connected Cameras

Apple’s WWDC opening keynote ended around 48 hours ago, and we’re still picking through all of the announcements and sub announcements from it. Amazingly, HomeKit got some love via the various updates that we saw including facial recognition and activity zones for those using HomeKit-compatible cameras.

Announced as part of the iOS 14 update, Apple says that facial recognition is all handled on-device, ensuring that no data leaves the home and goes off to random servers in the cloud.

In fact, HomeKit as a whole is designed to be as secure as possible, something third-party apps absolutely can’t claim.

The Home app makes smart home control even easier with new automation suggestions and expanded controls in Control Center for quicker access to accessories and scenes. Adaptive Lighting for compatible HomeKit-enabled lights automatically adjusts the color temperature throughout the day, and with on-device Face Recognition, compatible video doorbells and cameras can identify friends and family. The Home app and HomeKit are built to be private and secure, so all information about a user’s home accessories is end-to-end encrypted.

Alongside facial recognition, Apple also announced that users will be able to set activity zones for compatible cameras.

That will allow users to ensure that their cameras don’t trigger alerts when detecting people in areas that aren’t deemed important. This feature is notable for those who live on busy streets and find passing traffic and pedestrians causing cameras to misbehave.

All of this will come as part of iOS 14, available to developers right now. A public beta is coming as soon as next month with everyone else able to install it later this year.

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