Apple's HomeKit AI Video Summaries Can Cost Up to $59.99 a Month

Running Apple's new AI video summaries on five security cameras will cost $59.99 per month — more than $700 a year on top of a household's existing iCloud storage plan. That is the price of Apple Intelligence arriving in the smart home with iOS 27, which deploys the company's Siri AI suite across its software ecosystem and injects Apple Intelligence into HomeKit's home security camera system.

The new feature generates natural-language descriptions of videos captured by home security cameras. It groups related clips across multiple cameras to build a comprehensive picture of a specific event, making it easier to review what happened at home. In its press release announcing the feature, Apple shows a man identified as Robert arriving at a home with a bowl of fruit — an example of how HomeKit's Apple Intelligence and Face Recognition software work together to generate the summaries.

Users can also search recordings with natural-language queries and group similar videos together to reduce notification clutter. The feature is optional; no one is enrolled in the costly subscription automatically.

What hardware do you need?

The feature is not available to all HomeKit users. Apple has set a hardware floor that excludes older setups:

• A 2nd generation HomePod, HomePod Mini, or Apple TV 4K running Apple's latest operating system
• An Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone — nominally the iPhone 15 Pro or later
• A compatible camera, listed on Apple's Smart Home Accessory website

The hardware requirements are only part of the barrier. The bigger one is cloud storage pricing.

Why does one camera require 2 TB of storage?

Charging for HomeKit Secure Video cloud storage is not new. Before the AI update, users could run a camera network on 50 GB, 200 GB, and 2 TB iCloud+ plans. The new AI features change that calculus entirely.

A single Apple Intelligence-enabled camera now requires the 2 TB iCloud+ plan at $9.99 per month. Adding a second camera forces an upgrade to the 6 TB plan at $29.99 per month. Anywhere from three to the maximum of five cameras requires 12 TB of storage, which pushes the bill to $59.99 per month — over $700 added to yearly household costs. That storage sits on top of the family's regular iCloud storage plan.

There is a workaround for cost-conscious users. Apple lets you enable the feature selectively per camera. A front porch camera tracking deliveries might justify the expense; a back window camera recording the occasional possum might not.

Will these prices hold?

Probably not forever, and Apple says as much. On its Apple Intelligence support page, the company notes that supported cameras and iCloud+ features "may change over time." Given how volatile AI subscription pricing has become as companies search for profitability, treating the current tiers as permanent would be a mistake. For now, the feature remains opt-in, so users who skip it face no charge.

How do you set it up?

For users who decide the summaries are worth the money, configuration runs through the Home app on iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

First, confirm that HomeKit Secure Video is set up. On iPhone or iPad, go to Settings > your name > iCloud > Show All > Home. On Mac, open the Apple menu > System Settings > your name at the top of the sidebar, then click iCloud > See All, Show All, or Show More Apps > Home.

To enable video descriptions, open the Home app on iPhone, tap the Home tab, tap the three-dotted icon, and select Home Settings. There you can toggle Apple Intelligence on and choose which cameras get video descriptions.

For visitor recognition, return to the Home app. After adding a camera to the app's homepage, go to Recognize Familiar Faces, turn on Face Recognition, and tap Continue. To name recent visitors, go to the Home tab, tap the camera, select the gear icon, open Face Recognition, tap the unidentified person in the Recent list, and tap Add Name. You can assign identifiers and choose whether to receive a notification when that person enters the camera's view.

To cut down on alerts every time a raccoon passes by, open the Home app, go to Home > three-dotted icon > Home Settings, tap Apple Intelligence, and enable Reduce Notifications.

The release marks another step in AI's push into the modern smart home — and a test of how much homeowners will pay for it. With a five-camera AI setup costing more than $700 a year, Apple has effectively priced its home AI tier at the level of a utility bill, and whether consumers accept that will shape how rivals like Google and Amazon price their own home intelligence features.