A leak has detailed how iPhones would talk to the smart home accessories Apple is reportedly co-developing with LG. The feature is called “Proximity Control,” according to an X post from a leaker known as pdfu. Tap or hold an iPhone near a supported accessory, and a Dynamic Island shortcut for that device would appear.
How Proximity Control Is Said to Work
The shortcut reportedly changes with the accessory in front of you. A thermostat would surface an Open Controls option in the Dynamic Island. A camera or a video doorbell would bring up a camera viewer instead.
Hardware without a Dynamic Island is covered too, per the leak. On iPads and older iPhones, the same prompt would arrive as a notification that stays visible for 30 seconds. A Home app setting would let you turn proximity controls off once an accessory is set up.
Recognition is said to use two layers. One is an identifier stored on an NFC tag, the other a Bluetooth Low Energy broadcast. pdfu says the underlying code has sat in iOS since version 27.0, with its behaviour changing through the iOS 27.2 betas. As of October 10, Apple has yet to announce the feature.
The Accessories This Points To
androidpure covered the partnership itself on October 7, after Bloomberg reported that LG would build a line of co-developed Apple smart home devices. That report described a lineup of:
- A smart thermostat
- A temperature sensor
- A deadbolt lock
- A wired video doorbell
- Several security cameras
The accessories are said to run on Matter. Proximity Control, however, is described as an Apple Home feature rather than a part of the Matter standard itself. In plain terms, the tap-to-open shortcut would be an Apple-device convenience. Nothing in the leak suggests Android phones on the same Matter network would get an equivalent.
How Much to Trust This
One source, two write-ups. MacRumors and The Verge each covered pdfu’s post, but both trace back to that single X post. As of October 10, no second leaker has independently corroborated the detail. Treat the feature name and the 30-second timer as provisional until it ships.
