Apple's first LG-made smart home accessories will let an iPhone start pairing with them before they're even plugged in.
Leaker pdfu dug through iOS 27 code and found a feature called Proximity Control built for Apple's co-developed LG accessory lineup - a thermostat, temperature sensor, deadbolt lock, wired video doorbell, and several security cameras, first reported by Bloomberg this week. Tapping an iPhone against an unpowered accessory writes the phone's pairing identity and Wi-Fi or Thread credentials onto an NFC secure element inside the device; once it's plugged in, it joins the network and a home hub finishes Matter setup. The accessories also store an "apple-deviceid" tag and broadcast Bluetooth Low Energy signals, so a Dynamic Island prompt - or a 30-second notification on phones without one - pops up when an iPhone gets close, offering to open controls or a live camera feed. LG's firmware swaps out the standard Matter NFC applet for a HomeKit-specific one, meaning the no-power pairing trick works only through Apple's software, though the gear still supports ordinary Matter pairing once powered.
This is Apple building the convenience layer that's supposed to make someone else's hardware feel first-party, the kind of frictionless setup HomeKit has promised but rarely delivered. Replacing the generic Matter NFC applet with a HomeKit-only one is a small firmware choice with outsized consequences: it hands Apple, not the open standard, control over the easiest way to get a device onto the network.
Whether any of this appears in public soon is unclear. Apple has a "Welcome home" event set for October 13, where a new home hub, Apple TV 4K, and HomePod mini are expected, and Bloomberg says Apple could preview the LG lineup there - but the accessories themselves, leak or no leak, reportedly remain months from shipping.