Apple Home will soon unlock your front door for you automatically, and give guests time-limited access to your smart home security devices

A front door with an iPhone in front of it

(Image credit: Apple / Pella)

WWDC 2024

1. iOS 18 — what's next for iPhone?
2. iPadOS 18 — will Apple finally unleash the power of iPad?
3. macOS 15 — what's new for Mac?
4. Apple Intelligence — what will it be able to do?

We’ve all been there — scrambling for our keys at our home’s front door with arms full of shopping bags, babies, pets, rubbish bags, drunken friends. Delete as appropriate, but getting that key into that lock sometimes is harder than it sounds.

At WWDC 2024 Apple announced a new feature for its smart home controlling Home app that might save you some of that hassle. A new ‘hands-free unlock’ option will let the app speak to compatible door locks and, with your permission, automatically unlock them when you’re within six feet of the door.

Apple is yet to reveal which locks will be compatible with the new feature, but we’d hope it’ll include some of the best HomeKit door locks. The feature will roll out as part of the wider iOS 18 update, expected to land alongside the iPhone 16 in September — though you can download the iOS 18 beta right now if you want to gamble with a potentially buggy pre-release software build.

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Guest access for your trusted visitors

That’s not the only new thing coming to the Home app. If you’ve got visitors heading to your Jetsons-like smart home, you’ll soon be able to give them time-limited access to your pad’s security features.

Guests will be able to control locks, garage doors, and security systems with your permission, on either individual event-based occasions, or as part of an ongoing schedule — perfect if you have regular house visitors like cleaners, dog walkers, or babysitters.

A few smaller updates round out the Home app’s new feature set, including energy monitoring with some utility companies, starting with Pacific Gas & Electric Company in California, robot vacuum cleaner control complete with Siri voice command activation, and the ability to activate Spatial Audio features on third-party speakers with using AirPlay to stream compatible music and movie soundtracks to those devices.

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Gerald Lynch is the Editor-in-Chief of iMore, keeping careful watch over the site's editorial output and commercial campaigns, ensuring iMore delivers the in-depth, accurate and timely Apple content its readership deservedly expects. You'll never see him without his iPad Pro, and he loves gaming sessions with his buddies via Apple Arcade on his iPhone 15 Pro, but don't expect him to play with you at home unless your Apple TV is hooked up to a 4K HDR screen and a 7.1 surround system.

Living in London in the UK, Gerald was previously Editor of Gizmodo UK, and Executive Editor of TechRadar, and has covered international trade shows including Apple's WWDC, MWC, CES and IFA. If it has an acronym and an app, he's probably been there, on the front lines reporting on the latest tech innovations. Gerald is also a contributing tech pundit for BBC Radio and has written for various other publications, including T3 magazine, GamesRadar, Space.com, Real Homes, MacFormat, music bible DIY, Tech Digest, TopTenReviews, Mirror.co.uk, Brandish, Kotaku, Shiny Shiny and Lifehacker. Gerald is also the author of 'Get Technology: Upgrade Your Future', published by Aurum Press, and also holds a Guinness world record on Tetris. For real.