iOS 26 beta hints at major smart home upgrade

There's a surprise in store for anyone who controls their smart home with Apple's Home app in iOS 26. A recently discovered code snippet hints at an upcoming feature that will make controlling your home's heating and air conditioning even smarter.

This was reported by Apfelpatient.

Route Memory & Visited Places

The two new features in Apple Maps work as follows: First, Maps learns which routes are traveled regularly and prioritizes displaying them. The app also recognizes frequently visited locations and can automatically include them in route planning.

All analysis takes place directly on the device, and no data is transmitted to Apple servers. This architecture protects privacy by ensuring that sensitive movement data is not disclosed.

Adaptive Temperature

Starting with iOS 26, the Home app can predict when you're on your way home or leaving the house based on the detected routes and locations. The thermostat settings are then automatically adjusted. The heating turns on in time for your arrival and turns off when you're away. Thanks to end-to-end encryption, all data remains secure on the device.

Apple emphasizes that all calculations are performed locally and that no movement profiles leave the iPhone. The Maps app uses the same data protection mechanisms as Adaptive Temperature Control — all data is encrypted and anonymized.

It is still uncertain whether and in what form Adaptive Temperature will appear in the final version of iOS 26. For now, it's just a leak from the beta phase. Apple could modify or remove the feature before the release.

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