Apple Wants to Make Your New Home ‘Smart’ From Day One

Apple is partnering with several U.S. home building companies in an effort to speed up adoption of its HomeKit system, according to a new report in Bloomberg.

Cupertino hopes that if its home automation systems are built into a home from the start, it’ll be easier to sell the products, and potential buyers will be more likely to stick with HomeKit in the long-term. This type of smart home integration is more convenient, as it doesn’t require any additional installation on the buyer’s part, and the cost of the ecosystem can be added to a mortgage, according to AppleInsider. For example, a basic wireless device package that costs around $2,000 could add up to a few pennies a month when rolled into a mortgage, an Apple building partner spokesperson said.

“We want to bring home automation to the mainstream,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of marketing, told Bloomberg. “The best place to start is at the beginning, when a house is just being created.”

A home built by the Lennar Corporation was the focus of the recent Bloomberg article. Around $30,000 worth of home automation technology was integrated into the four-bedroom Alameda, California house, including Lutron’s automatic shades and a touchscreen deadbolt built by Schlage. And the property is just one of many HomeKit-integrated homes expected to come onto the market in the near future. In addition to Lennar, Apple is reportedly working with other companies, including Brookfield Residential Properties and KB Home. But none of the companies have officially announced when the automated homes will be for sale, Bloomberg reported.

And while home automation may still be a young yet burgeoning market, analysts predict that $24 billion will be spent on smart home systems by the end of 2016. Research firm Strategy Analytics expects that number to jump to over $40 billion in the next four years.