Siri cleans your floors and Snoopy saves your screen: A look at Apple’s upcoming Home and Audio features

Apple made several announcements during its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), and while the focus was on Apple Intelligence and the company’s take on artificial intelligence, there were a couple of updates on the smart home side of things worth taking note of. 

From adding support for robot vacuum cleaners, to a feature called InSight on Apple TV, here’s everything coming to Audio and Home with the software updates later this year.

Robot vacuum cleaner support

The upcoming software updates will allow you to ask Siri to clean your floors if you have a compatible robot vacuum cleaner. Support for the core functionality of robot vacuum cleaners, including power control, cleaning mode, vacuum, mop and charge status has been added for iOS 18.

With the support, you will also be able to include robot vacuum cleaners in automations, scenes and Siri requests. Say “Siri, clean my living room” and your compatible robot will get vacuuming.

Guest access 

With iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, you will be able to give access to your home to guests and create a specific schedule for when they can and can’t enter your home. It’s a feature that devices like the Nuki smart lock already offer, allowing you to give access to a cleaner, dog walker or anyone else you might want to allow to enter your home without giving them a code or key.

With Guest Access, you will be able to provide access to garage openers, alarm systems and door locks that you choose, at the times you select. Remember you will need to have HomeKit compatible locks and openers however.

Express Mode

On the theme of unlocking, iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 will bring automatic unlocking of your door as you approach. It’s called Express Mode and you will be able to turn it on or off. When on, the door will unlock as you get closer – another feature similar to what you can already get on devices like Nuki. 

Again, you will need a compatible lock on your door, and you will need to be carrying an iPhone in your bag or wearing an Apple Watch. 

Home electricity use

This feature is specific to certain regions and customers, with eligible Pacific Gas and Electric Company customers benefiting in the US. It will also arrive a little later than some other iOS 18 features. Still, when it does arrive, if you are one of those eligible customers, you will be able to connect your utility account to see your electricity usage and rate plan information.

You will also be able to see a summary of your usage by day, week, month, 6 months or a year, as well as percentage change for each of those periods.

InSight

One for the Apple TV fans out there, InSight will offer timely information about actors, characters and music from Apple TV+ movies and shows. It’s similar to what Amazon Prime Video offers with X-Ray and it means you will be able to find information about what you’re watching onscreen in real-time.

If you select a actor, you will then be able to see their background and filmography page, while you can also see the song that is playing and add it to an Apple Music playlist should you really like it. InSight information also works on iPhone when you’re using your phone as an Apple TV remote.

Enhance Dialogue

Enhance Dialogue is improving with tvOS 18, using machine learning and computational audio to offer better vocal clarity over music, action and background noise on Apple TV 4K.

Enhance Dialogue won’t just work through HomePod speakers either with the update, you’ll also be able to take advantage of it when using built-in TV speakers, HDMI-connected speakers, Bluetooth-connected devices and AirPods when playing compatible content through iPhone or iPad.

Subtitles 

Subtitles will appear automatically with tvOS 18 at certain moments. This includes if you’re watching a show or film and the language doesn’t match your device’s language, as well as when you mute or skip back.

Snoopy 

We are big fans of the Snoopy Apple Watch face so we are very pleased to see Snoopy appear as a screensaver option on Apple TV with tvOS 18. There are other options too with new ones for Portraits, TV and Movies but can any of them really beat Snoopy? In addition to the screensavers, the new software will also bring 21:9 support for playing movies and shows on projectors.

AirPlay and SharePlay 

There are some additions to AirPlay and SharePlay with the latest software too. For AirPlay, Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos support is being added so you get a more immersive audio experience when using AirPlay to stream audio from iPhone and iPad to HomePod and other compatible speakers, like Sonos. 

For SharePlay, the tvOS 18 update will allow you to share control of music playing from Apple Music through HomePod and HomePod mini. You’ll have to scan a QR code on another iPhone to join a SharePlay session after which you can add songs to the playlist and control playback, even if you aren’t an Apple Music subscriber.

When will the new Apple Home and Audio features be available?

There is no specific date for the software updates for HomePod, Home or Apple TV as yet, but they normally arrive sometime in September after the launch of the new iPhones. We will update this feature once a specific release date is announced. 

There will be a public beta of iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 available in July but it is not yet clear if those betas will include the new Home and Audio updates.