Every now and then, in the tech world, there’s a seemingly insignificant piece of news—a manager leaving a company and joining another. But when you look closer, you’ll find that such moves often say more about the state of projects than the press releases themselves. And that’s exactly what happened to Brian Lynch, who had a Applu was in charge of smart home hardware and is now heading to Oura.
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Another change in the smart home team Applu
Brian Lynch has been leading the hardware side of the team working on smart home products since 2022. In other words, he was one of the people who was thinking about what future smart display devices would look like. home mushrooms or other products that are intended to connect HomeKit, Siri a Apple ecosystem.
According to agency information Bloomberg but Lynch from Applu is leaving and joining Oura, the company behind the popular health and sleep tracking smart ring. He will serve as senior vice president of hardware engineering. This is a relatively big “catch” for Oura. Lynch is not in Applu is no newcomer. In the past, he participated in the development of several generations of the iPod and later also worked on a project for an autonomous car.
Smart home Applu is still looking for his direction
Lynch’s departure comes at a rather interesting moment. Apple He has been working on his own smart home device for a long time, which should be something like a combination of HomePod and iPad, which would serve as a central control panel for the home. However, according to available information, this particular project has been delayed several times. Originally, there was talk of a launch last year, but the date was later pushed back, and now there is speculation that the earliest possible launch will be this fall.
The main problem is supposed to be surprisingly Siri. Apple It is said that it needs to fundamentally redesign the voice assistant so that the device can provide personalized information and control the home in a truly smart way. And as we have already mentioned, AppAs we have seen several times, if one key part of a project does not work as expected, the entire product can easily wait in a drawer for several years.
Departures as a common occurrence?
From an HR or corporate culture perspective, it is interesting that this is not the first significant departure from this part Applu. Of course, this does not automatically mean that the smart home project has problems. Such moves are common in large technology companies. On the other hand, it is true that Apple in the smart field home has not yet found such a strong position as in telefonephones, watches or headphones.
On the other hand, there is Oura, which is a much smaller company than Apple, but it has one big advantage – a clearly defined product. Smart rings have become an increasingly popular alternative to smartwatches in recent years, and Oura is one of the best-known players on the market. From an engineer’s perspective, working in a smaller company can be paradoxically more interesting. Fewer layers of management, faster decision-making, and greater influence on the product itself.
At the same time, however, it would be fair to add that Apple It is definitely not abandoning the smart home project. According to available information, it is working on several other household products. In addition to the aforementioned smart display, there is talk of a video doorbell with Face ID or a smart lock that could integrate into the ecosystem HomeKit.
