Apple Launches HomeView, Its First Smart Display for the Home

Apple HomeView Arrives as a New Home Hub

Apple's HomeView is its first smart display for the home. The device combines a 7-inch square touchscreen with a speaker base, and it is available in silver, starlight, rose pink, and space grey for $299. It launches alongside a new Apple Home Collection that includes cameras, thermostats, and a door lock. As a smart home hub, Matter controller, and Thread Border Router, it can orchestrate Apple Home and Matter devices. Pre-orders are open now, with devices shipping November 13. It is available in eight countries at launch: the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and India.

The screen sits atop a small aluminum speaker base attached by an adjustable stainless steel arm. There are no physical volume or power buttons and no cover for the 12-megapixel FaceTime camera. Apple says the camera is used only for video calls and facial recognition. The display can show customizable faces, widgets, clocks, photos, and a smart home face for controlling lights, climate, cameras, and other devices.

Siri AI, Faces, and Apps on HomeView

HomeView has Siri AI built in for natural language voice interactions, general knowledge questions, smart home control through voice and touch, and information using personal context from text messages, calendar, and emails. Personal context requires facial recognition and an Apple Intelligence capable iPhone on the same network. The display can show neatly formatted recipes, keep users in frame on FaceTime calls with Center Stage, and show live feeds and footage from HomeKit Secure Video cameras. It can pull up an app grid with Apple's core apps, and some audio apps such as Spotify and Audible are available. Apple says it also works with third party audio and video apps that support the CarPlay architecture.

The screen can display photo faces, clock faces, Snoopy faces, and a modular face with widgets for apps such as a to do list, world clock, and podcasts. A home widget face fits up to six widgets for controlling devices. The device can set multiple timers and let users name them, though Apple did not say exactly how many. It runs many of Apple's apps, including Calendar, Reminders, Messages, and Music.

Mounting, Sound, and Household Profiles

HomeView comes in four colors. It has two speaker drivers in the display, plus a woofer and two force canceling passive radiators in the base. Early listening suggests the sound is a few notches above the HomePod Mini but does not compete with the HomePod. The Liquid Retina display has True Tone and ambient light adjustment, can reach 500 nits, and can go down to 0.3 nits for bedside use. A wall mountable version without the speaker base costs the same $299 and offers plug in, in wall power, and in wall PoE options.

HomeView supports up to six profiles and uses facial recognition to switch between them so only the recognized user sees personal information. Each user must have an iPhone or iPad updated to the latest operating system. Apple says facial recognition and microphone data are processed on a Secure Exclave on the device's A18 chip. It can also hand off recipes from Safari on an iPhone and format them for cooking, and conversations started with Siri AI on HomeView can be continued in the Siri AI app on iPhone. When not recognized, Siri AI can still show a live doorbell feed, answer general questions, control some smart devices, display recipes, and play audio and video.

Sources: The Verge · Engadget · Techmeme