Apple to unveil new smart home products, showcasing updated Siri AI

NEW YORK: Apple on Tuesday is expected to show off a new round of smart home products, including an iPad-like device meant to hang on walls or perch on tabletops that will showcase its AI-upgraded Siri virtual assistant. The devices will help users control doorbells, thermostats and smart locks in a market where Apple has tinkered for a decade without major success. The devices could also include upgrades to its HomePod smart speaker and Apple TV devices, analysts said. Apple is launching these products as it tries to fend off challenges from rivals, including traditional competitors like Amazon.com, which has invested heavily in its Echo speakers and Ring doorbells and last week launched premium tablets, as well as newer AI upstarts like OpenAI that have hardware ambitions of their own. Investors are looking more closely at Apple's hardware sales for growth as the company's services revenue has come under regulatory pressure. Apple first released its Home app to control smart gadgets in 2016, with HomePod smart speakers following in 2018, but those offerings are competing with Alphabet's Google Home speakers and Amazon's Echo line. Analysts said two major hurdles for Apple were making its devices work with a variety of third-party gadgets and the limited ability of Siri to give useful answers. Apple this summer upgraded Siri's capabilities with assistance from Google, but the process of wiring a smart home is still too difficult for many Apple consumers to see a benefit, said Bob O'Donnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research. "Advancements in AI should finally help, but the key questions for Apple are, do they have connectivity smarts to simplify the process and are they going to be willing to work across the smart home ecosystem and not just within their own walled garden," O'Donnell said.