With a HomeKit Secure Video camera or doorbell, you can use the Home app to receive notifications when people you’ve tagged in the Photos app are within the camera’s view.
It works from your photo library, and from pictures of recent visitors your camera or doorbell captures, so you can identify recent visitors, too. You can also share faces with your household.
Here’s how to use Face Recognition in Home on iPhone.
Set up Face Recognition
To identify people, Face Recognition uses the faces that appear in your photo library or in pictures of recent visitors your camera or doorbell captured.
If you’re setting up a camera or doorbell for the first time, do the following:
- Start the Home app on your iPhone.
- Add the accessory to the Home app.
- In the Recognize Familiar Faces card, turn on Face Recognition. Then tap Continue.
- Choose who can access your photo library:
- Never: Only faces you’ve added from clips in the Home app are recognized.
- Only Me: Only the notifications you receive have the names of people in your photo library.
- Everyone in this Home: The notifications for everyone in your home have the names of people in your photo library.
- Tap Continue. Then finish setting up the camera or doorbell.
If you have an existing doorbell or camera and want to use it to identify visitors, tap it on the Home tab, tap the Settings button, tap Face Recognition, then turn on Face Recognition. Tap your photo library, then choose who can access it.
Note: These notifications can appear on any device associated with your Apple Account.
Identify recent visitors
For people who aren’t in your photo library, Face Recognition can use a picture captured by your camera or doorbell to help identify them.
- Start the Home app on your iPhone.
- Turn on Face Recognition.
- On the Home tab, tap the camera or doorbell. Tap the Settings button.
- Tap Face Recognition and tap an unidentified person listed below Recent. Then tap Add Name.
- Add the person’s name or their relationship to you—Mom or Mail Carrier, for example.
- Choose whether to be notified when they’re seen by your camera or doorbell.
Note: People with a face mask don’t appear in this list.
Share faces with your household
Members of your household can see the names of visitors identified in your photo library if you allow it.
- Start the Home app on your iPhone.
- Turn on Face Recognition.
- Tap the More button, then tap Home Settings.
- Tap Cameras & Doorbells below Notifications and tap Face Recognition.
- Tap your photo library and tap Everyone in this Home.
