Skipping over the smart home has become something of a tradition during Apple’s more recent keynotes, but signs are growing that Apple won’t be giving short shrift to its home products much longer.  Indeed, Apple may be poised for its most significant home launch in years: a wall-mountable “command center” that will feature a six-inch touchscreen complete with smart home controls, all backed by Apple Intelligence, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.  The new smart panel could also be placed on a tabletop using an optional dock, Gurman says, in line with earlier chatter about an upcoming HomePod with a screen.  This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart speakers. On top of that, Apple may be mulling its own line of security cameras and other smart accessories, which would (naturally) dovetail nicely with the touchscreen command center, Gurman reports.  The touchscreen panel could arrive as soon as March, Gurman predicts, and if it does, it would represent Apple’s biggest smart home splash since the original HomePod first landed in 2018. (The timing of smart accessories, including cameras, isn’t quite clear yet.)  So, why would Apple double down on the smart home next year? A couple of reasons spring to mind.  First, of course, is Apple Intelligence, Apple’s big AI bet that’s off to a somewhat slow start.  Apple has been understandably cautions when it comes to AI, relegating the technology (for now, anyway) to tasks such as rewriting text, summarizing notifications, and erasing unwanted objects and people from the backgrounds of photos.  But a wall-mounted command center with a supercharged Siri on board would be a great box to check as far as Apple Intelligence is concerned, serving as a highly visible showcase for Apple’s AI efforts.  Second is the slow rise of Matter, the budding smart home standard that promises to—one day, at least—unite the big smart home ecosystems.  Matter still has plenty of rough edges, including a cumbersome on-boarding process for Matter-enabled smart devices, while a key smart home category—security cameras—is still missing from the Matter specification.  But a recent Matter update paves the way for making it easier to add smart gadgets to multiple Matter-compatible smart home platforms, including Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and—of course—Apple Home.  Also, it’s conceivable that security cameras could finally become part of the Matter standard as early as next spring, just in time for Apple’s (still only rumored) smart panel launch.  If it does actually happen, the command center would go a long way toward proving that Apple is serious about the smart home, rather than simply paying it lip service with the occasional Apple Home update and a once-in-a-blue-moon HomePod refresh. 

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