Apple introduced its first dedicated smart-home hub on Tuesday, unveiling a touchscreen display called HomeView alongside refreshed versions of the HomePod Mini and Apple TV 4K at a "Welcome Home" event built entirely around the connected home. The announcement is Apple's most significant push into a product category that Amazon and Google have occupied for nearly a decade with their Echo Show and Nest Hub devices.
HomeView, Apple's flagship reveal, is a $299 device with a 7-inch square Liquid Retina display mounted on a rounded speaker base, in a design The Verge likened to the company's 2002 iMac G4. It comes in silver, starlight, rose pink and space gray, can sit on a countertop or be wall-mounted, and automatically dims to as little as 0.3 nits so it can sit on a nightstand without lighting up a bedroom at night. A built-in 12-megapixel camera handles FaceTime calls and can recognize up to six household members, switching the display from a shared view to a personalized one. From the hub, users can control lighting and thermostats and watch a live feed of up to nine security cameras at once.
The $149 HomePod Mini 2 is the first update to Apple's smallest speaker in six years, and it costs $50 more than its predecessor's debut price. It keeps the familiar ball shape but swaps in more muted colors — pink, blue, green, white and midnight — matched to current iMac finishes, and adds a "Sound Glow" lighting effect that syncs the top panel's glow to whatever album art is playing. Apple moved the speaker to the S10 chip used in the Apple Watch Series 10 and added Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 6, and support for Thread and Matter, though Engadget reports that Siri AI support won't arrive until a software update "later" this year.
The fourth-generation Apple TV 4K, meanwhile, now costs $299 — about $100 more than the previous model's starting price, which had already risen earlier this year. The new box adds four far-field microphones so viewers can talk to Siri AI directly instead of through the remote or a paired HomePod, though responses appear as on-screen text rather than spoken audio. Paired with an iPhone, Engadget notes, the box can also surface personalized show recommendations and locate a lost remote using Bluetooth Channel Sounding.
A Late, iPhone-Tethered Entry
HomeView is Apple's first major Apple Home product since it launched the HomeKit software platform in 2014, and it arrives well after rivals established the smart-display category. The device's Siri AI features — personal context and spoken-video descriptions — only work through a connected iPhone, and HomeView reportedly requires every person in a household to own an iPhone running the latest operating system. That requirement could complicate adoption in mixed iOS-and-Android homes, or households with older iPhones that can't run the newest software.
Apple also announced a new line of smart-home accessories, developed with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric, under the banner Apple Home Collection. It includes a $199 indoor camera that tilts away from view when a resident arrives home, a $299 outdoor security camera (with an optional motion-activated floodlight bumping the price to $399), a $249 video doorbell, a smart lock and two thermostats. All of the cameras are HomeKit Secure Video-compatible, detecting people, pets, packages and vehicles, and are designed to pair with an iPhone over NFC the way AirPods do. Apple has not given a release date for the collection beyond "coming soon."
What Happens Next
HomeView and the new Apple TV 4K are both available for preorder now, with shipping expected to begin on November 13th. The HomePod Mini 2 is also open for preorder, with units shipping sooner, on October 30th. None of the hardware is cheap relative to rivals' smart displays, and reviewers who got early hands-on time with HomeView have so far focused as much on its iPhone dependency as on its screen and camera. Apple's bet is that households already inside its ecosystem will absorb the premium — and that, a decade after HomeKit, it can still make a late entrance into a category it didn't invent.
