Summary
It’s finally here: Apple’s long-rumored smart display, the Apple HomeView, has arrived. I got a first look at the device in New York City this week, and it’s gorgeous. The HomeView puts a small, vibrant screen atop a speaker base for taking video calls, beautifully displaying photos, and providing information at a glance with Apple’s Siri AI voice assistant. The device’s square shape makes it feel less imposing than larger smart displays like Google’s Nest Hub Max or Amazon’s Echo Show 11, and I can see it fitting nicely on my kitchen counter — though it might be a hair too big for my bedside table.
Apple launches HomeView, its first smart display for the home
As Apple debuts Siri AI in the home, it’s focusing on a beautiful, multipurpose screen (and hiding your text messages from your kids), rather than innovative new smart home features.
The HomeView is the centerpiece of Apple’s new push into the home. It [costs 299 and comes with three mounting options: plug-in, in-wall power, and in-wall PoE. Apple says the audio is tuned for wall placement, but I didn’t get to hear it in action.
The screen is wrapped in an aluminum case and has no physical buttons; the frame is just dotted with a speaker grille and microphone holes. It has a Liquid Retina display — that usually means LCD in Apple’s language, though the company didn’t clarify — with True Tone support and ambient light adjustment, and it can go up to a bright 500 nits and down to a super-low 0.3 nits, which Apple says makes it usable as a bedside clock. The screen is large enough to see clearly from across the room but doesn’t adjust as you approach. You tap widgets to access different apps and controls, or use voice to tell it what to do.
While the HomeView functions as an Apple Home Hub — it enables local control of supported devices, creation of scenes and automations, and support for HomeKit Secure Video — the device feels less like a focused smart home controller and more like a way to use your iPhone less when you’re at home.
The HomeView supports a number of Apple’s own apps, including Calendar, Reminders, Messages, and Music. Apple says it also works with third-party audio and video apps that support the CarPlay architecture. A few audio apps, such as Spotify and Audible, are available, but no video apps yet.
Siri AI on HomeView is the same voice assistant as the upgraded version that arrived on the iPhone with iOS 27. It has no smart display-specific features or home-control features; it offers broad world knowledge, personal context, and natural language understanding. I saw a demo where it accepted chained requests and retained the context throughout, such as adding an event to the calendar, then setting a reminder for that same day, and adding an item to a grocery list. However, chained requests for home devices are limited to specific device types — you can turn on the lights in the living room and the bedroom, but you can’t lock the front door and adjust the thermostat with one command.
Both the tabletop and wall-mounted devices have the same features; only the mount differs, but where you place them will likely dictate how you use them. A HomeView on the kitchen counter feels more tailored to content consumption, music, and cooking, while a wall-mounted version fits more of the smart home control center role.
In its demo space, Apple mounted a HomeView near a front door with the smart home widget enabled, allowing touch control of locks, the thermostat, and lights. It can push a live feed from a doorbell camera when someone rings the bell and display up to nine live streams from HomeKit Secure Video cameras. When you tap on a widget, it becomes a full-screen controller. I saw the thermostat controls, and they were large and easy to use. I haven’t yet gotten to play with any other widgets or try controlling it with voice commands.
The HomeView’s key software feature is intelligent switching that lets the screen move from a household device to a personal device. It uses facial recognition and the presence of your recently unlocked iPhone on the home Wi-Fi network to authenticate you. Once it knows who you are, it can show your customized HomeView layout and, if you have an AI-capable iPhone, use personal context to pull up that recipe Mom texted you or play that song your friend sent. Without recognizing the user, Siri AI on HomeView can show the live doorbell feed, answer general questions, control some smart devices, display recipes, and play audio and video.
Apple allows the device to support up to six profiles, but each user must have an iPhone or iPad updated to the latest OS. Apple says the microphone and camera data used for profile recognition is processed on a Secure Exclave running on the device’s A18 chip, which Apple says it can’t access, the OS can’t access, and apps can’t access.
My concern is how seamlessly it will switch between profiles and how limited it will be when it doesn’t recognize you — I’ve had too many instances of yelling at Siri on my HomePod because it refuses to find my iPhone until I authenticate on the iPhone I’m asking it to find. Some smart home controls, like viewing recorded footage or controlling security accessories, require an authenticated user, which I can see causing problems if it’s too slow or if you’re trying to get things done without standing in front of the device.
Based on early impressions, and without yet getting my hands on the HomeView, I think success here hinges on how much people really want to use a communal device for personal interactions. The demos I saw were engaging and fun, and its deep integration with your iPhone gives it more to work with than a device like Amazon’s Echo Show, which has a similar profile feature but less personal information to offer.
However, all the demos work just as well with Siri AI on your iPhone, and the whole system seems precariously tied to said phone. Beyond the personal context features, I didn’t see a compelling smart home use case that I haven’t seen on competitors’ smart displays. In classic Apple style, the HomeView looks gorgeous as well as intuitive to use, and if it can actually keep phones off the kitchen counter at meal times, that might just be its killer feature.
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