Apple’s new AI-powered camera summaries are coming with a surprisingly steep catch: you’ll need a $59.99-per-month iCloud+ plan if you want to use the feature across five HomeKit Secure Video cameras.
The feature arrives as part of iOS 27 and uses Apple Intelligence to turn motion alerts into text descriptions. Rather than simply telling you that motion was detected, the Home app can identify things such as people, animals, vehicles and packages, then summarise what happened.
During the iOS 27 beta, Apple confirmed that a 2TB iCloud+ plan or higher would be required for the feature, but it hadn’t initially explained how many cameras each plan would support. That detail has now emerged, and the limits are considerably tighter than the existing HomeKit Secure Video camera allowances.
The $9.99-per-month 2TB iCloud+ plan supports AI summaries on just one camera. If you want two cameras, you’ll need the 6TB plan at $29.99 per month, while the $59.99-per-month 12TB plan supports up to five cameras.
Apple One Premier subscribers are also limited to one camera for AI summaries, despite the bundle including 2TB of iCloud+ storage.
That creates an unusual gap between Apple’s existing HomeKit Secure Video limits and its new AI feature. A $0.99-per-month 50GB iCloud+ plan can support one HomeKit Secure Video camera, while the $2.99-per-month 200GB plan supports five cameras. The 2TB plan can support an unlimited number of cameras for HomeKit Secure Video recording.
But those same cameras won’t all get Apple Intelligence summaries.
So, someone already paying $9.99 per month for 2TB of iCloud+ and running several HomeKit Secure Video cameras will only be able to activate the new AI feature on one of them.
There has already been pushback from iPhone users, with complaints appearing across Reddit and forums. Apple does note that supported camera numbers and other iCloud+ features could change over time, so these limits may not necessarily be permanent.
The timing is also interesting given reports that Apple is developing its own home security cameras and a broader home security and monitoring service. If those products arrive, it remains to be seen whether advanced AI features will also sit behind an iCloud+ subscription.
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