Apple’s smart home ecosystem may not have stolen the spotlight at this year’s WWDC keynote, but exciting developments are quietly taking shape—particularly around energy management within the Home app. Recently, Apple introduced the new EnergyKit framework through a video on its developer site, signaling a promising step toward smarter, more efficient energy use for iOS 26 and iPadOS 26.
EnergyKit enables developers to seamlessly integrate energy data from Apple Home into their apps, offering innovative ways to optimize electricity consumption. Imagine your thermostat intelligently adjusting its settings during peak energy prices or your electric vehicle (EV) charging based on forecasted energy costs—saving you money while supporting cleaner energy sources. Currently, EnergyKit is designed to work with EV chargers and smart thermostats, which already offer features like demand response and energy shifting.
While these capabilities are available today through products like Ecobee and Google Nest thermostats, and various EV charging apps, the real potential lies in future integrations. Apple’s initiative could pave the way for a comprehensive home energy management system (HEMS), allowing users to monitor, control, and optimize all their energy-consuming devices from a single, intuitive platform. This concept is already gaining traction with platforms like Samsung SmartThings and LG’s Homey, which incorporate AI-driven energy modes.
However, Apple’s platform currently lacks native energy monitoring support for connected devices, highlighting a gap that EnergyKit aims to fill—at least from a developer perspective. By enabling third-party apps to access and utilize energy data, Apple is laying the groundwork for a future where energy management within the Home app could become a reality.
Supporting this vision is Apple’s commitment to the Matter smart home standard, which recently expanded to include support for major appliances, heat pumps, electric water heaters, battery storage, solar panels, and hybrid systems. As Matter continues to evolve, it could make integrating energy-intensive devices into Apple’s ecosystem much easier, bringing Apple closer to realizing a true home energy management system.
While Apple Home may not yet fully support energy monitoring for all devices, these developments suggest a future where your smart home is not just connected, but also smarter and more energy-efficient—saving you money and helping the environment along the way.
