iOS 27 adds written summaries of what your HomeKit Secure Video cameras captured and delivered as part of the motion alert before you even open the footage. Instead of tapping through to a clip to find out your dog knocked something over, you get a line like “a dog sat on the floor” or “a person walked through the room” right in the notification. Getting it set up takes a few minutes, but there are real prerequisites to check first. The iOS 27 HomeKit updates go well beyond summaries, but this feature is the most immediately practical one for camera owners.
What You Need Before You Start
Apple Intelligence video summaries in the Home app have a tighter requirements list than most iOS 27 features. You need an iPhone 15 Pro or later (or an equivalent iPad that supports Apple Intelligence), at least one HomeKit Secure Video-compatible camera, and an iCloud+ plan at the 2TB tier or higher storage, which costs $9.99 per month. HomeKit Secure Video storage does not count against your 2TB allocation, so that full amount stays available for photos and other data.
You also need a home hub running current software. It should be either an Apple TV running tvOS 27 or a HomePod running HomePod Software 27. Without one of those in the house, the Apple Intelligence features in the Home app will not activate regardless of what plan you are on. Once you reportedly have all of that, the setup itself is straightforward.
Enabling Video Summaries Per Camera
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- Open the Home app on your iPhone or iPad and tap the menu icon in the top-left corner to access the sidebar.
- Tap Home Settings, then scroll down until you see the Apple Intelligence section. This section lists how many of your HomeKit Secure Video cameras are eligible for generated summaries. Users on an 8TB iCloud+ plan can enable summaries for up to 15 cameras.
- Tap a camera from the list shown under the Apple Intelligence section. Settings are configured on a per-camera basis, so you will need to repeat this for each camera you want covered.
- Toggle on Video Summaries for that camera. A language selector also appears here, so if you want summaries in a language other than your system default, set that before moving on.
- Repeat for each eligible camera in your home. There is no bulk-enable option, so go through the list one by one.
- Enable Reduce Notifications while you are in the Apple Intelligence section. This toggle consolidates related activity alerts, so if someone arrives at the front door and immediately unlocks it, you get one combined summary instead of two separate notifications. A busy entry camera can still flood your lock screen without it, so turn it on alongside summaries.
- Open the Home app on your iPhone or iPad and tap the menu icon in the top-left corner to access the sidebar.
Note:
- If the Apple Intelligence section does not appear in Home Settings at all, confirm that your home hub (Apple TV or HomePod) is online and running tvOS 27 or HomePod Software 27. A hub that is offline or on older software blocks the feature even if your iPhone and iCloud plan otherwise qualify.
- HomeKit Secure Video cameras support facial recognition tied to your Photos library. Once video summaries are running, alerts for people the system recognizes is expected to include their name rather than just “a person,” which makes the summaries more specific for tracking who came and went.
What the 2TB Plan Unlocks Beyond Summaries
The 2TB iCloud+ tier also unlocks two other Apple Intelligence features in the Home app: natural language search across your camera footage (so you can type something like “package delivery” and pull relevant clips) and automatic surfacing of noteworthy recordings the system judges worth your attention. The Home app can also group footage from multiple cameras to give an overview of a single activity across rooms, which is useful if you are trying to trace a package from the front door through the house.
iOS 27 is currently in developer and public beta ahead of its expected September launch. Everything here reflects the iOS 27 Beta 5 build, based on what iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 Beta 5 introduced to developers on August 11, 2026, so minor details in the settings UI may shift before the final release, but the core feature path and requirements are unlikely to change.
